Mehdi Salehzadeh and Abdollah Khademi Hanged in Isfahan

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two men were hanged in Isfahan (Dastgerd) Central Prison province on 30th January 2025. Their identities have been established as 35-year-old Mehdi Salehzadeh from Rasht and 41-year-old Abdollah Khademi (photo), an Urmia native living in Tabriz. He was a father of three.

Both men were sentenced to death on drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court in separate cases. They were executed without last family visits.

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.”