The Iranian regime put at least 1,639 people to death in 2025 — the highest recorded execution toll since the mass killing of political prisoners at the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1989 — according to a joint report released by Iran Human Rights and Together Against the Death Penalty.

The figures amount to an average of more than four executions per day throughout the year.

The report found that most of last year’s executions were carried out for drug-related offenses or murder. Death sentences for drug convictions rose 58% compared to 2024, while executions for murder convictions — which under Iranian law almost always result in a death sentence — jumped 79%. At least 48 women were executed, a 20-year record, the report said.

At least 57 others were sentenced to death on charges including “waging war against God” and “corruption on Earth.” The nonprofits noted that ethnic and religious minorities were disproportionately represented among those executed, and that a bulk of the sentences were handed down by Revolutionary Courts “after grossly unfair trials and without due process.”

The report does not capture the full scope of executions carried out since January’s nationwide uprising and the outbreak of war with Israel and the United States. State media has confirmed at least 14 executions so far this year, though the Norwegian-based Hengaw Organization for Human Rights has documented evidence of as many as 160 hangings since January. Seven of the confirmed executions were linked to protest activity and took place after Operation Epic Fury launched in late February. Six others involved members of the exiled opposition group Mujahideen-e Khalq, and one person was executed on charges of spying for Israel.

Separately, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency estimated that upwards of 7,000 protesters were killed in the streets during the height of the winter revolution, with thousands more still under investigation.

The pace shows no sign of slowing. Iran’s hardline chief justice last week ordered that all death penalty cases involving what the regime classifies as “agents and affiliates of the enemy” — a category that includes protest activity — be expedited.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)