As the world marks the World Day Against the Death Penalty on October 10, 2025, Iran stands out—tragically—as a nation where the gallows have become a tool of political repression, and where state violence extends far beyond the prison walls. While an overwhelming majority of countries have turned away from capital punishment, Iran has not only clung to it but has weaponized execution and deportation to maintain its grip on power and control over vulnerable populations.
According to Amnesty International, by the end of 2024, over 145 countries had abolished or stopped using the death penalty. Yet, Iran accounted for more than 60% of all recorded executions worldwide in that same year—a staggering figure that flies in the face of global progress. And the trend has only accelerated: in the first nine months of 2025, international human rights organizations report that over 1,000 people have been executed in Iran, nearly doubling the country’s total for all of the previous year. Sources close to the Iranian Resistance put the true number even higher, stating that by October 6, 2025, at least 1,226 executions had taken place—an average of five to six per day. Since Masoud Pezeshkian became prime minister in July 2024, more than 1,926 people have been executed, underscoring the regime’s heavy reliance on capital punishment as a means of survival.
September 2025 was especially grim: at least 200 prisoners, including six women, were executed in a single month—the highest monthly toll in 36 years. For context, there were 84 executions in September 2024 and only 29 in 2023. These numbers, reported by various human rights groups and outlets, paint a chilling picture of a regime resorting to ever-more draconian measures as it faces mounting internal and external crises.
The rope, in Iran, is not just a judicial tool—it is a political weapon. The regime has a long history of using executions to silence dissent, from the 1988 massacre of political prisoners to waves of hangings following recent uprisings. The current surge is deeply entwined with the regime’s instability: the death of Ebrahim Raisi in April 2024, disarray among the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the collapse of proxy forces abroad, the reactivation of the UN snapback mechanism, and the country’s worsening economic deadlock. For Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his inner circle, executions are less about justice and more about projecting power and instilling fear in a restless population.
Political executions have spiked in recent weeks. On October 4, 2025, six Arab political prisoners were executed in Sepidar Prison, Ahvaz, after seven years behind bars. That same day, Saman Mohammadi-Khiara was hanged in Ghezel Hesar Prison following twelve years of incarceration. Iran’s Supreme Court has also upheld the death sentence of Mohammad Javad Vafaei-Sani, a supporter of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). Earlier this year, Hamed Validi and Nima Shahi were sentenced to death after enduring brutal torture. The number of political prisoners on death row has now exceeded 17—a grim milestone that signals the regime’s desperation to stamp out organized opposition.
But Iran’s oppression is not confined to its own citizens. In 2025, the country deported approximately 1.3 million Afghans, many of whom had fled their homeland in search of economic survival or to escape Taliban restrictions on education and work, especially for women and girls. According to Sky News, at the Islam Qala border crossing in Afghanistan, as many as 28,000 people have crossed in a single day this year, returning to a country many had left out of sheer necessity. Some, like 15-year-old Tahir, endured harrowing ordeals in Iranian detention centers before being forced back. Tahir recounted, “They would force us to lie down on the concrete floor and kick us. In the detention rooms, if someone spoke up they would be forced to lie on the ground. If they protested, they would be sent to a dark solitary cell.”
Many deported Afghans, including children and families, were smuggled into Iran by traffickers and suffered brutal treatment in detention. Fatimah, a mother, told Sky News that her two daughters worked from dawn until late evening but were never paid. “The Iranians didn’t give them any money,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. For many, the trauma of deportation is compounded by the realization that survival back home is nearly impossible. Tahir, despite having just reunited with his family after two years, is already planning to return to Iran to support them financially. “I would rather kill myself than see my father begging for money for his hungry children,” he said, expressing a heartbreaking sense of duty shared by countless other young Afghans.
Iranian authorities set a September 2025 deadline for all undocumented Afghans to leave the country. However, human rights groups report that even those with legal status have been swept up in mass deportations. The numbers crossing back into Afghanistan have pushed the already fragile country to the breaking point, especially as Pakistan has also deported tens of thousands of Afghans this year. The Iranian government did not respond to requests for comment on these allegations.
The regime’s fear of a restless nation is palpable. The spread of young dissidents, rebellious women, and resistance units across Iran has rattled the leadership. The “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign, launched from a prison cell in Ghezel Hesar, has reached 52 prisons in its 89th consecutive week, becoming one of the longest-running acts of organized resistance in Iran’s prison history. Letters and statements from political prisoners reveal a growing defiance. Two MEK political prisoners, Behrouz Ehsani and Mehdi Hassani, executed on July 27, 2025, refused to denounce their ideals despite severe torture. Their final words—“We do not bargain for our lives”—have become a rallying cry for those who oppose the regime’s machinery of fear.
Iran’s reliance on executions and mass deportations is a symptom of a regime in decay, increasingly isolated and dependent on violence to maintain its rule. But history suggests that a government sustained by death cannot survive indefinitely. Each execution and forced expulsion now fuels greater anger and resistance, from universities to factories, from Kurdish towns to Khuzestan, from prisons to the streets. The cry against executions has become a cry for the end of the entire theocratic system.
On this World Day Against the Death Penalty, the international community faces a moment of reckoning. The world must recognize that in Iran, executions and deportations are not acts of justice or law enforcement—they are instruments of state terror. The voices of Iran’s prisoners, the stories of Afghan deportees, and the courage of those who refuse to bow to tyranny deserve to be heard. The end of executions and forced expulsions in Iran will not only mark the fall of a brutal regime, but also the triumph of life, freedom, and justice for millions who have suffered under its rule.