Eight hundred Iranian activists including political prisoners on Friday condemned as a "tool of repression" a steep uptick in Tehran's use of the death penalty after rights groups reported 280 hangings in Iran in October alone.
In a joint statement, the civil, cultural and political activists of diverse affiliations denounced the Islamic Republic for “turning executions into a tool of control and repression with unprecedented intensity."
Twenty-eight inmates were executed nationwide on October 22, bringing the total number of executions that month to 280, the Iran Human Rights Society wrote on Wednesday.
The group called October “the bloodiest month for prisoners since the mass executions of 1988.” The deaths, it said, mostly linked to drug offenses or murder, included several Afghan nationals and were sometimes carried out without notifying families or allowing final visits.
The statement on Friday, signed by several political prisoners, described the wave of executions, particularly in Ghezel Hesar Prison west of Tehran, as evidence of the “moral and legal collapse of the judiciary and its blatant disregard for human dignity.”
The signatories praised the more than year-long Tuesdays Against Executions campaign launched by Ghezel Hesar political prisoners, calling it a spontaneous act of resistance in which inmates “protest every week through hunger strikes against the culture of death.”
Amnesty International on October 16 urged an immediate halt to executions, saying more than 1,000 had been recorded so far in 2025, many following unfair trials aimed at silencing dissent and persecuting minorities.
“UN Member States must confront the Iranian authorities’ shocking execution spree with the urgency it demands. More than 1,000 people have already been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2025 -- an average of four a day,” Amnesty said.
