The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) published its annual report on Friday, 9 October 2026, on the eve of the World Day Against the Death Penalty. According to the report, the Islamic Republic executed at least 2,003 people between 10 October 2025 and 8 October 2026, a 29 percent increase on the 1,553 executions of the previous period and the highest figure in the organisation's ten reporting periods.
At the same time, a group of independent UN human rights experts said in a statement that Iran is the world's leading executioner per capita and called for an immediate halt to executions. According to Iran International and Radio Farda, the experts said the Islamic Republic uses the death penalty to silence the voices of dissidents.
Details of HRANA's execution report
According to HRANA, the figures are based on 1,857 recorded reports, and about 95 percent of the executions were not announced by official sources; in other words, only about five percent of executions were made public by the government itself. 57.56 percent of executions were for premeditated murder and 36.25 percent for drug-related charges. Those executed include 47 women and four people who were under 18 at the time of the alleged offence. Nine executions were carried out in public, and six other people have also been sentenced to public execution.
HRANA recorded 69 political and security-related executions, 35 of them linked to the December 2025–January 2026 uprising, and 29 people were executed on the charge of "moharebeh". The organisation also documented 369 "forced confessions" linked to the December–January protests, which it says were extracted under torture, including in the case of Amirhossein Hatami, who was executed at the age of 18. According to the report, 1,075 people have been executed since the start of 2026, 334 of them in January alone.
The Islamic Republic executed at least 2,003 people in one year and never announced 95 percent of these executions.
Reaction of UN experts
In their statement, the UN experts said torture, enforced disappearance, sexual violence, forced confessions and denial of access to a lawyer have been reported in the cases of those detained in December 2025–January 2026. They also noted that drug-related executions mostly target low-level couriers from poor and marginalised communities, and called for death sentences to be commuted and cases to be reviewed in line with fair trial standards.
According to a separate review by Iran International, at least 194 people in political and security cases are at risk of execution, 113 of them linked to the December–January protests, including Hadi Abbasian, a protester from Shirvan who has been sentenced to death for publishing protest videos. Human Rights Activists in Iran also called on Islamic Republic officials to declare, as a first step, an "official, nationwide moratorium" on all executions.
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