Iranian authorities reportedly executed 901 people last year, including around 40 in a single week in December, the United Nations rights chief said on Tuesday.

"It is deeply disturbing that yet again we see an increase in the number of people subjected to the death penalty in Iran year-on-year," said Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. That compares to at least 853 people executed in Iran in 2023.

"It is high time Iran stemmed this ever-swelling tide of executions," Turk said in a statement.

Iran uses capital punishment for major crimes including murder, drug trafficking, rape and sexual assault.

Activists are increasingly alarmed over the surge in hangings in Iran.

The Islamic republic executes more people per year than any other nation except China, for which no reliable figures are available, according to human rights groups including Amnesty International.

They accuse the authorities under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of using capital punishment as a tool to instil fear throughout society, particularly in the wake of 2022-2023 nationwide protests.

The U.N. rights office said that most of last year's executions were for drug-related offenses but it said "dissidents and people connected to the 2022 protests were also executed."

"There was also a rise in the number of women executed," the office said.

IHR said in a report on Monday that at least 31 women had been executed in Iran in 2024.

Iran does not publish official data on executions, but U.N. rights office spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters that the team had gathered figures from a range of different reliable rights organizations that monitor the situation, including HRANA, Hengaw and the Norway-based Iran Human Rights.

"We are confident of the number," she said.

The highest number of executions in Iran in recent decades was recorded in 2015, when at least 972 people were put to death.
After that, the numbers decreased following a reform of Iran's anti-narcotics law in 2017, but Throssell warned that "since 2022 the numbers have risen sharply."

"Clearly the number for 2024 is alarmingly, shockingly high," Throssell said.

Turk stressed that his office opposed "the death penalty under all circumstances."

"It is incompatible with the fundamental right to life and raises the unacceptable risk of executing innocent people," he said. "And, to be clear, it can never be imposed for conduct that is protected under international human rights law."

The U.N. rights chief urged the Iranian authorities to halt all further executions, and to place a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view to ultimately abolishing it.

Some 170 states have either abolished the death penalty or imposed a moratorium on its use.

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