Iran will have no mercy for drug traffickers, warned Attorney General Mohammad Movahedi-Azad amid rising concerns about the country’s alarming rate of drug-related executions.

“We will have no mercy on the criminals associated with violent crimes, especially the drug traffickers who are death dealers and burn people’s lives with the fire of addiction,” he said on Saturday.

According to Amnesty International’s report, Iran conducted at least 853 executions in the past year, marking the highest figure in eight years, more than half of those linked to drug-related offenses.

In April, 82 Iranian and international human rights groups called on the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to suspend its cooperation with Iran until it halts drug-related executions.

The coalition highlighted that prisoners charged with drug offenses are sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Courts in Iran based on “torture-tainted confessions, without due process and fair trial rights and often without access to a lawyer.”

“We are concerned that hundreds more will be executed in the coming months if we do not increase the political cost of these executions for the Islamic Republic. We call on all human rights organizations and activists to take part in a special global campaign to stop drug-related executions in Iran,” the statement read.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the Director of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organization, warned that the UNODC has remained silent about the sharp hike in drug-related executions in the country, while it cooperates with Tehran on combating drug trafficking.

The drug-related executions are “aimed at instilling fear and preventing more protests” and have been carried out “without any political cost and consequences,” he stressed.