3 Men Executed for Drug Charges in Urmia

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, three men were executed in Urmia Central Prison on 8 December. Their identities have been established as 39-year-old Ali Shahinnejad, Solat (Hamid) Tousan and Janali Nadimi (Dargahi).

All three men were Urmia and had been sentenced to death for drug-related charges in separate cases. They were transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for their executions on 6 December.

At the time of writing, none of their executions have been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

The number of drug executions dramatically dropped in 2018 following a 2017 Amendment to the Anti-Narcotics Laws. Consequently, drug executions ranged between 24-30 per annum between 2018-2020. The Amendment was reversed in practice in 2021 when executions increased ten-fold to 126 in 2021 and doubled again in 2022 with 256 drug-related executions. On 13 September 2023, IHRNGO reported a 94% rise in the number of drug-related executions in the year following the start of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in September 2022.