Khodadad Rahimi and Saber Alikhani Executed in Kashan; 45 Others at Risk

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two men were executed in Kashan Prison on 8 November. Their identities have been established as 40-year-old Khodadad Rahimi and 31-year-old Saber Alikhani who were both sentenced to death for drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court. Khodadad had been on death row for around three years and Saber for around two years.

An informed source told IHRNGO: “There are currently 45 death row prisoners in Kashan Prison whose sentences have been upheld by the Supreme Court. Most of them were sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder. A prison official recently told three of the prisoners to talk to the plaintiffs in their case to obtain forgiveness, otherwise the judiciary has ordered for all those with confirmed death sentences to be executed.”

At the time of writing, the two men’s executions have not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year for the past three years. At least 305 people were executed for drug-related charges between 1 January-10 October 2023, a 69% increase compared to the same period in 2022, and the number of drug-related executions in 2023 were close to 20 times higher than 2020.

The number of drug executions dramatically dropped in 2018 following a 2017 Amendment to the Anti-Narcotics Laws. Consequently, drug executions ranged between 24-30 per annum between 2018-2020. The Amendment was reversed in practice in 2021 when executions increased ten-fold to 126 in 2021 and doubled again in 2022 with 256 drug-related executions. On 13 September 2023, IHRNGO reported a 94% rise in the number of drug-related executions in the year following the start of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in September 2022.