Iran carries out finger amputation sentence, rights group says
Iran has amputated the fingers of a prisoner on alleged theft charges despite the plaintiff’s pardon, Norway-based human rights group Hengaw reported on Friday.
Iran has amputated the fingers of a prisoner on alleged theft charges despite the plaintiff’s pardon, Norway-based human rights group Hengaw reported on Friday.
The report said the punishment was carried out on September 30 at Isfahan Central Prison (Dastgerd Prison) against 37-year-old Mohsen Ashiri, also known as Mohsen Lorazbakhsh Falavarjani, a member of the Lor Bakhtiari ethnic minority from Zazran in Isfahan province, central Iran.
Hengaw said Ashiri had been sentenced by an Isfahan court to six months in prison and the amputation of four fingers on his right hand.
He was released after serving his term and posting bail of 10 billion rials (about $8,890), following the plaintiff’s consent.
The court later demanded he post a new bail of 200 trillion rials (about $1.78 million), the report said.
When he failed to pay, the sentence was carried out less than a month after his re-arrest.
Hengaw condemned the punishment as “a clear violation of human dignity” and “tantamount to torture,” urging Iran to halt such practices.
In July, Iran amputated the fingers of three men convicted of theft at Urmia Central Prison on Wednesday night, the human rights group Hengaw said.
International human rights organizations have consistently condemned such punishments.
In April, Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, told Iran International in an interview that "corporal punishment, including amputation, is absolutely prohibited under international law. And if executed, will amount to torture or ill-treatment."
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a signatory, explicitly prohibits inhumane or degrading punishments. Human rights advocates argue that amputation sentences violate the fundamental principle of human dignity enshrined in international law.
At least 237 individuals in Iran were sentenced to amputation between 1 January 2000 and 24 September 2020, with at least 129 of those sentences carried out, according to Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office.
Iran’s Afsaneh Nadipour and China’s Ren Yisheng were among seven experts selected on Tuesday for the council’s advisory committee, which is tasked with providing guidance on human rights issues.
US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said the new appointments were “ludicrous,” questioning how governments accused of severe abuses could advise the UN on human rights.
"How do you expect countries such as China and Iran to advise this organization on human rights?” he wrote on X, adding that “one is exporting terrorism and jailing women, and the other is throwing ethnic minorities in concentration camps.”
Hillel Neuer, chief of pro-Israel watchdog UN Watch, told Fox News Digital that the United Nations “elected Beijing’s and Tehran’s loyal agents as ‘human rights experts’—without a ballot, without shame,” saying both “persecute minorities, jail anyone who speaks freely, and rule through fear and censorship.”
Iranian-American activist Lawdan Bazargan condemned Nadipour’s selection, calling it “a slap in the face to the courageous women of Iran.”
“She has served a regime that forces hijab, allows child marriage and imprisons women’s rights activists,” Bazargan wrote on X.
Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the hawkish Washington-based thinktank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), also condemned the move in a post on X. “The Islamic Republic has been elected to the UN ‘Human Rights’ Council. The UN is a blight on humanity,” he wrote.
According to Amnesty International, China was the world’s leading executioner in 2024, followed by Iran in second place.
Amnesty said while Beijing keeps its execution figures secret, Iran was responsible for at least 972 executions last year—about 64 percent of the total of 1,518 executions globally.
This month, Iran has executed 72 people in the first nine days of October, bringing the total number of executions this year to at least 1,172.
In addition to executions, rights groups have documented widespread suppression of free speech and assembly in Iran, where activists, journalists and minorities face arbitrary detention.
In China, rights groups including Amnesty International have documented mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, along with systematic censorship and repression of dissent.
