3 Women and 4 Men Hanged for Drug Offences in Birjand

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, four men and three women were executed in Birjand Central Prison on 23 July. Three of the men’s identities have been established as Amir Hamzeh Barahouyi-Mojarad and Moslem Heidari, who were both Baluch minorities, and Vahid Vahdani, a 33-year-old Kurdish man from Bojnourd. The other man and three women have not been identified at the time of writing.

They were all sentenced to death for drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court.

At the time of writing, their executions have not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Iran is the biggest executioner of women. In 2023, at least 22 womenwere executed for drug-related, murder and security-related charges in Iran. The execution of the three unidentified women brings the total number of women executions to 14 in 2024.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year since 2021. According to IHRNGO’s 2023 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 471 people were executed for drug-related charges, an 84% increase compared to 2022 (256) and about 18 times the average of drug-related executions in 2018-2020. In the first six months of 2024, at least 147 people were executed for the charges.

On 10 April 2024, 80+ Iranian and international organisations and groups called for joint action to stop drug-related executions, urging UNODC to make “any cooperation with the Islamic Republic contingent on a complete halt on drug-related executions.”