Iranian authorities executed at least 1,639 people in 2025, a 68 percent increase from the 975 recorded in 2024, two human rights groups said on Monday, warning that more hangings are likely as the Islamic republic recovers from the war against the US and Israel.
The figure represents the highest number of executions since Norway-based Iran Human Rights began tracking them in 2008, and the most reported since 1989, the early years of the Islamic revolution.
The joint annual report by IHR and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty said the number includes 48 women, a 55 percent increase from 2024 when 31 women were hanged.
If Iran “survives the current crisis, there is a serious risk that executions will be used even more extensively as a tool of oppression and repression,” the report warned.
Raphael Chenuil-Hazan, executive director of ECPM, said the question of abolishing the death penalty needs to be “at the heart” of any talks between Iran and the West on ending the conflict.
“Be strong, put the death penalty in all the deals,” he told reporters at a news conference in Paris.
IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam lamented that after US-Iran talks in Islamabad at the weekend failed to agree on a breakthrough, there was “no mention of the Iranian people’s rights in any of those negotiations.”
He said a moratorium on the death penalty and the release of all political prisoners must be “demand number one” in talks.
The report also warned that “hundreds of detained protesters remain at risk of death sentences and execution” after being charged with capital crimes over January 2026 protests against the authorities. Even during the war, Iran hanged seven people in connection with the January protests, six men convicted of membership in the banned opposition group People’s Mujahedin of Iran, and one dual Iranian-Swedish citizen charged with spying for Israel.
Almost half of those executed were convicted of drug-related offences. Public hangings more than tripled to 11 in 2025.
Rights groups including Amnesty International say Iran carries out the most executions of any nation worldwide per capita, and the most of any country other than China, for which no reliable data is available. Chenuil-Hazan added that Iran may have “perhaps” now overtaken China as the world’s top executioner.
