2024 Executions for Murder Charges in Iran

This is an extract from the 2024 Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran.

 

Facts and figures about qisas executions in 2024

• At least 419 executions were carried out for murder charges based on qisas laws compared to 282 in 2023, 288 in 2022 and 183 in 2021
• This is the highest number of annual qisas executions since 2010
• 50 qisas executions were announced by official sources (12%)
• At least one child offender (under 18 years of age at the time of offence) was executed
• 19 of those executed for murder charges were women (61% of all women executions)
• 87 qisas executions were carried out in Alborz prisons
•  

Executed for murder charges in 2024

The 419 qisas executions in 2024 include a variety of cases, including two protesters. In all cases, defendants were denied their rights to due process and a fair trial. More information on the execution of child offenders and women can be found in the “Execution Categories."

 

Moein Salahvarzi

Moein Salahvarzi was a 63-year-old farmer who spent more than half his life, 32 years, on death row. According to his son, his father’s brother had demanded a year’s harvest of wheat and straw from him. “My dad refused to be extorted and when my uncle came and used vulgar language against my mother in front of the village, my father shot him, intending to shoot at his leg but my uncle moved forward. My dad didn’t intend to kill his brother, but he passed away on the way to the hospital,” his son told IHRNGO. His family, who followed up on his case throughout the years, were told that his case had been lost at the Supreme Court. Moein was executed in Ilam Central Prison, Ilam province, on 11 March 2024.[1]

 

 

Ramin Saadat

Ramin Saadat was 18 when he was arrested and sentenced to qisas. His family tried everything to save him in the four years and five months he spent on death row. The night prior to his execution, family, friends and activists gathered outside Miandoab Prison in an effort to save his life. The next morning, on 18 May 2024, the rope used to hang Ramin in Miandoab Prison, West Azerbaijan province, was too loose so they had to pull him down. The alleged victim’s family requested for him to be hanged again. Ramin was 23 years old at the time of his execution.[2]

 

 

 

Younes Akhtar Samar

Younes Akhtar Samar was a father of five children arrested for murder. The court relied on qassameh and elme-qazi to sentence him to death due to the lack of evidence against him. The alleged victim’s family had demanded 20 billion tomans as diya, which Younes’s family were unable to afford. He was executed in Jiroft Prison, Kerman province, on 14 October 2024.[3]

 

 

 

 

 

Ahmad Alizadeh

Ahmad Alizadeh was a 26-year-old elite student arrested on 12 October 2018 for murder. According to his relatives, he never accepted the charges and had confessed under torture. On 27 April 2024, he was hanged in Ghezelhesar Prison, Alborz province, but was pulled down after 28 seconds at the request of the alleged victim’s family. He was returned to his cell after being resuscitated. Ahmad was ultimately executed at the same prison on 13 November 2024.[4]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arvin Ghahremani

Arvin Ghahremani was a 20-year-old Jewish man who was arrested for a murder allegedly committed during an attack in Kermanshah on 12 November 2022 when he was 18. According to his family, when the victim attacked Arvin with a cold weapon, he took the weapon and defended himself. Arvin made every effort to save the victim’s life after injuring him, but the victim died after medical assistance was delayed in reaching him. At trial, Arvin’s court-appointed lawyer did not effectively defend his client for unknown reasons, and his right to self-defence was not properly presented in the case. His appeal was also rejected twice without serious consideration and many important events leading to the stabbing were ignored.[5] While the victim’s family had initially agreed to accept diya in lieu of execution, they changed their mind when they discovered that Arvin was Jewish. Arvin was executed in Kermanshah Central Prison, Kermanshah province, on 4 November 2024.[6]

 

 

Qisas executions since 2010

According to data gathered by IHRNGO, at least 2,850 qisas executions were carried out between 2010 and 2024. The diagram below shows the trend of qisas executions during this period.

 

The number of qisas executions, which was relatively low between 2010 and 2012, increased dramatically in 2013 coinciding with growing international criticism of Iran’s drug-related executions. In 2024, at least 419 people were subjected to qisas executions, the highest recorded number of annual qisas executions in at least 15 years.

 

Ghezelhesar Prison: The New Execution Capital of Iran

Following the closure of Rajai Shahr Prison (formerly Gohardasht Prison) in 2023, Ghezelhesar Prison has emerged as the new epicenter of executions in Iran. With the majority of Rajai Shahr prisoners transferred to Ghezelhesar, it has become the primary site for carrying out qisas sentences. In 2024 alone, at least 75 individuals were executed for murder charges in Ghezelhesar Prison, making it the new qisas capital of the country.

In addition to qisas cases, Ghezelhesar Prison was also the site of a significant number of executions for other offences. At least 70 individuals were hanged for drug-related offences, 15 for security-related charges, and 10 for rape convictions. The total number of executions carried out in Ghezelhesar Prison in 2024 stands at 169, accounting for 17% of all executions nationwide, solidifying its position as the execution capital of Iran.

Ghezelhesar Prison has also become the focal point of grassroots resistance against the death penalty. The establishment of the “No Death Penalty Tuesdays” campaign within the prison is a testament to the growing opposition to capital punishment among prisoners and their families. Tuesdays are normally the days when death row prisoners are transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for execution, making it a symbolic day of resistance and protest against the state’s execution machine.

 

 

Blood money (diya) or forgiveness instead of the death penalty in qisas cases

According to the IPC, murder is punished by qisas, where the victim’s next of kin can demand execution as retribution. But they can also demand diya (blood money) instead of retribution or can simply grant forgiveness. The Head of Judiciary sets an annual indicative amount for diya based on inflation and other considerations, but the victim’s family can choose their own amount. They can demand a lower or higher amount than the judiciary’s indicative number but crucially, no upper limit is set. The diya indicative amounts, which are determined every March, were set at 1.2 billion tomans (€18,000) for a Muslim man and 600 million tomans (€9,000) for a Muslim woman in March 2024, a 33% increase compared to the previous year.[7] The amount set by families is usually higher than the indicative amount and even the indicative amount is higher than what most families can afford. In 2024, at least eight people were executed because they could not afford blood money: Hossein Habibi, Alireza Marzban, Iman Rezaeipour, Zahra Feizi, Ahmad Alizadeh, Abbas Karimi, Younes Akhtar Samar and Mohammad Ashouri.

IHRNGO has collected forgiveness reports since 2015. According to the reports gathered in the past ten years, the families of murder victims who chose forgiveness or diya for individuals convicted of murder outnumber those who chose the death penalty.

For the sake of simplicity, the term forgiveness is used in the following section, regardless of whether there was a demand for diya.

 

 

As with executions, not all forgiveness cases are reported by the Iranian media. Based on reports by the Iranian media and, to a lesser extent, through its own network inside Iran, IHRNGO identified 649 forgiveness cases in 2024, compared to 857 cases in 2023, 624 cases in 2022 and 705 cases in 2021.

 

 

As in the previous seven years, the forgiveness cases outnumbered those of implemented qisas executions in 2024. The actual numbers for both forgiveness and qisas death sentences are believed to be higher. IHRNGO estimates that the number of forgiveness cases might be several times higher than the numbers presented in this report.

The increasing trend of forgiveness in Iran correlates with a survey conducted for IHRNGO and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP) in September 2020, which found that the majority of people prefer alternative punishments to the qisasdeath penalty for murder victims.[8] Iranian authorities assert that qisas is the right of the plaintiff (the victim’s family/next of kin) and that most qisas executions take place upon the plaintiff’s request. However, when questioned about their preferred punishment if an immediate family member was murdered, only 21.5% of respondents chose qisas, while more than 50% preferred alternative punishments such as imprisonment.

 

 

A comparison of the number of implemented qisas death sentences and forgiveness cases in 2024.

 

The diagram above shows the monthly breakdown of implemented qisas death sentences compared to forgiveness cases. Forgiveness cases outnumber those of qisas executions in 7 months of the year.

 

Qisas and forgiveness: geographic distribution

In 2024, IHRNGO recorded forgiveness cases in 30 provinces in Iran. In comparison, qisas death sentences were reported in all 31 provinces. Qisas executions outnumbered forgiveness cases in 11 of the provinces.

 

The number of qisas executions were higher than forgiveness cases in 11 provinces, while the forgiveness numbers were higher than qisas executions in the remaining provinces. In Khuzestan, the number of forgiveness cases were around 21 times higher than the number of qisas executions.

 

 

[1] IHRNGO, Moein Salahvarzi Executed After 32 Years on Death Row, 11 March 2024, https://iranhr.net/en/articles/6539/https://iranhr.net/en/articles/6609/

[2] IHRNGO, Ramin Saadat Hanged Twice After Noose Failure, 22 May 2024, https://iranhr.net/en/articles/6730/

[3] IHRNGO, Younes Akhtar Hanged Based on Qassameh and Elme-qazi Sentence and Inability to Pay Blood Money, 16 October 2024,https://iranhr.net/en/articles/7011/

[4] IHRNGO, Ahmad Alizadeh Hanged for Second Time in Ghezelhesar Prison, 13 November 2024, https://iranhr.net/en/articles/7106/

[5] IHRNGO, Jewish Arvin Ghahremani at Imminent Risk of Execution Following Appeal Rejection, 24 May 2024 https://iranhr.net/en/articles/6737/

[6] IHRNGO, Jewish-Iranian Arvin Ghahremani Executed in Kermanshah, 4 November 2024, https://iranhr.net/en/articles/7077/

[7] https://www.mizanonline.ir/fa/news/4764775/نرخ-دیه-سال-۱۴%DB%B0۳-اعلام-شد

[8] IHRNGO, Groundbreaking Survey Reveals Iranians’ Attitudes Towards the Death Penalty, 12 October 2020, https://iranhr.net/en/articles/4458/