3 Men Executed for Drug Offences in Birjand

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, three men were executed in Birjand Central Prison on 17 November. Two of the men have been identified as Parviz Barahouyi (right photo), a Baluch man from Zahedan and Rahim Faghiri (left photo), a Kurdish father of three from the Shapiran Salman region.

They were sentenced to death for drug-related offences by the Revolutionary Court in separate cases.

Informed sources told IHRNGO that the three men were executed without last visits with their families.

At the time of writing, their executions have not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year since 2021. According to IHRNGO’s 2023 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 471 people were executed for drug-related charges, an 84% increase compared to 2022 (256) and about 18 times the average of drug-related executions in 2018-2020. In the first six months of 2024, at least 147 people were executed for the charges.

On 10 April 2024, 80+ Iranian and international organisations and groups called for joint action to stop drug-related executions, urging UNODC to make “any cooperation with the Islamic Republic contingent on a complete halt on drug-related executions.”