Iran Human Rights (IHR); May 31, 2021: A woman and her former husband have been executed on drug-related charges in Qazvin Central Prison. She is the sixth woman to be executed this year.
According to Iran Human Rights, a couple who had been married at the time of their arrest and also cousins, were executed on drug-related charges in Qazvin Central Prison on May 30.
His identity has been established as Yousef Pirostovan and his ex-wife Shamsi Pirostovan. She is the first woman to be executed since the 2017 amendments to the Anti-Narcotics laws.
An informed source told IHR: “The couple were arrested and sentenced to death for possession of 380 kilograms of drugs (unknown type).”
“They were arrested on the Qazvin-Karaj motorway around seven or eight years ago and sentenced to death in the first court hearing. In 2018, Ms Pirostovan had divorced Yousef through the judicial authorities at her family’s insistence while she was in prison,” the source added.
She is the sixth woman to be executed this year and the 158th woman to be executed since 2010.
It has been almost four years since an Article was added to the Anti-Narcotics Law in 2017 to limit death sentences specifically and provide a general degree of reprieve in some cases. However, while the numbers reduced that year, the death penalty is still being used in drug-related cases.
According to Iran Human Rights’ Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran, at least 25 people were executed on drug-related charges in 2020. However, at least 37 people have so far been executed on drug-related charges in 2021, the majority of whom have been Baluch minorities.
On May 3, IHR published a report on the death penalty in the first four months of 2021 expressing concern at the significant increase in the number of drug-related executions and continues to warn of the continuation of this trend.