4 Men Including 2 Baluch Minorities Executed in Gonabad

According to Haal Vsh, four men were hanged in Gonabad Prison, Khorasan Razavi province, on 26 December 2024. Their identities have been reported as 35-year-old Adollah Narouyi (photo) and 45-year-old Hossein Salarzehi, two Baluch men, and 35-year-old Javad Ghafari and 43-year-old Ahmad Ghafran.

All four men were sentenced to death for drug-related offences by the Revolutionary Court. Abdollah was arrested around four years ago, Ahmad and Javad were arrested around five years ago in separate cases and Hossein was arrested around six years ago. They were transferred to the pre-execution solitary confinement cells on Tuesday afternoon.

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

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.

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.