Group Hanging of 5 Men in Isfahan

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, five men were executed in Isfahan (Dastgerd) Central Prison on 22 February 2025. Three of the men were on death row for drug-related offences and two were sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder.

The drug defendants have been identified as 37-year-old Ahmad Hanafi from Taybad, 30-year-old Mojtaba Khoramdel from Bandar Abbas and 30-year-old Vahid Mohebi, a Baluch minority from Zabol. Ahmad and Mojtaba were on death row for four years and Vahid Mohebi for six years.

The two men executed for murder have been identified as 40-year-old Shahin Goudarzi from Boroujerd and 51-year-old Asghar Dehghani who was Bakhtiari, a sub-group of the Lor ethnic group. They were on death row for four and five years respectively.

At the time of writing, none of their executions have been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year since 2021. According to IHRNGO’s 2024 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 503 people were executed for drug-related charges, of which only under 3% were announced by official sources. 17% of all drug-related executions in 2024 were Baluch minorities while they represent 2-6% of Iran’s population.

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.