5 Men Including 3 Afghans Hanged in Bandarabbas

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, five men were hanged in Bandarabbas Central Prison on 1st January. Three of the men have been identified as Ramzi Beigsavar, a 25-year-old Afghan national, Hedayat Ghasemi and Shahrokh Sabahpour who were all sentenced to death for drug-related offences.

The two other men who were also Afghan nationals on death row for drug-related offences, have not been identified at the time of writing.

An informed source told IHRNGO: “Ramzi was from the Baboryan tribe in Afghanistan and arrested three years ago. Hedayat was from Roudan and on death row for five years. Shahrokh was from Bandarabbas and arrested around seven years ago.”

According to Resanak, a Baluch Telegram news channel, Hedayat Ghasemi was Baluch.

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. 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.”