EDITED: Mostafa Ajoudani 9th Public Hanging in Iran in 2025

According to the judiciary’s Mizan News Agency, a man was publicly hanged in Bastam, a city of under 10,000 inhabitants, on 25 November 2025. The man’s identity has not been established at the time of writing.

The head of the Semnan Provincial Judiciary is quoted as saying: “The defendant, by deceiving two women and with criminal intent, committed the heinous act of rape by force and coercion, and through intimidation and threats created fear and anxiety about disgrace for the complainants.”

The unidentified man is the nineth person to be publicly hanged in Iran 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.

In cases of rape, there is a high chance of defendants being tortured to make false confessions, which is used to issue death sentences. In Iran is one of the few countries in the world that issues the death penalty for rape. A lot of cases are also rushed without the defendants having access to a lawyer.

According to the 2024 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 22 people were executed for rape charges across 10 prisons.