2nd Public Hanging in a Week; Ilia Khalifehzadeh Executed for Rape

According to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency, a man was publicly hanged in Bukan on 12 July 2025. The unnamed man who IHRNGO has identified as 20-year-old Ilia Khalifehzadeh, was sentenced to death on charges of rape that led to the death of a 7-year-old girl. He was arrested last year and was the first defendant in the case.

Videos of the public hanging obtained by IHRNGO show that children were amongst the spectators.

This is the second public hanging recorded in Iran in the past week. On 9 July, an unnamed man was publicly hanged for murder charges in Baroq town.

Ilia Khalifzadeh is the fourth person to be publicly hanged in 2025. Iran is one of the few countries in the world to carry out executions in public spaces. 2021 was the only year in more than a decade that the Islamic Republic did not carry out any public executions, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic that year. Public executions resumed in 2022 with two people being hanged, and in 2023 the number of public executions rose again to seven. In 2024, four people were executed in public in Iran.

WARNING: photo of the public hanging of Ilia Khalifehzadeh in Bukan.