Gorgan prison: Habib Rakhmshah, father of five, executed on drug charges

Habib Rakhmshah (Notizehi), a 52-year-old prisoner, was executed in Gorgan prison on Wednesday, 14 October 2026. He had been sentenced to death by the Gorgan Revolutionary Court on drug-related charges. His execution was reported by the Baluchistan Human Rights Documentation Network and echoed by HRANA, the news agency of the Human Rights Activists in Iran.

According to these sources, Habib Rakhmshah, son of Nasreddin, was married, a father of five, and came from the village of Arazgol Fenderesk in Gorgan. He was arrested in Kordkuy in 2020 and had spent about six years in prison. As of publication, the officials of the prison and of the Islamic Republic's judiciary have not officially announced his execution, a pattern repeated in most drug-related executions.

Drug executions and the wave of executions in Iran

Prisoners convicted of drug offences make up a large share of those executed in Iran, and many of them come from deprived provinces and ethnic minorities, especially fellow Baluch countrymen. Human rights bodies have repeatedly said these defendants usually have no access to an independent lawyer and that their trials in the revolutionary courts are short and opaque.

In its annual report, HRANA stated that at least 2,488 people were executed in Iran in the Iranian year 1404 (March 2025 to March 2026), including 63 women and 2 people who were teenagers at the time of the offence. Thirteen of these executions were carried out in public.

Habib Rakhmshah's execution comes as executions of political prisoners continue; the same day the judiciary announced the execution of Alisina Mostafavi, a mountaineer and political prisoner from Kerman. A few days earlier, Ayoub Mohammad Nabil, an Iraqi citizen, was secretly executed in Lakan prison in Rasht.

Habib Rakhmshah, a father of five, was executed in Gorgan prison without any official announcement after six years behind bars.