File photo of a public execution in Iran
An Iranian official says a person has been sentenced to be executed in public, the third such penalty to be handed down in the country in less than a month.
The prosecutor in the western city of Khorramabad announced that a defendant was sentenced Sunday to be hanged in public for the alleged killing of a police officer in December 2021, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
The official, Darioush Shahounvand, didn’t disclose the name of the person sentenced.
In late March, a court in the central province of Esfahan sentenced two other people to be publicly executed for the killing a police officer in November 2021.
Iran had halted public executions for about a year and a half due to Covid-19 restrictions.
According to the Iran Human Rights Organization, at least 111 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2022.
The founder of the Norway-based group, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, has rejected claims by Iranian official that public executions are a “deterrent”, arguing that the practice creates a "cycle of violence" in society and aims to "intimidate the people".
Amnesty International said in its annual review of the death penalty published a year ago that Iran executed at least 246 people in 2020, remaining the world’s second top executioner after China.
Other countries using the death penalty included Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Syria and Vietnam.