A report on the statistics of the executions carried out during Hassan Rouhani’s two terms in office (August 3, 2013 – August 3, 2021)
18-August-2021
Category: executions
18-August-2021
Newsgroup: Execution –
Breathing in Confinement: Gross violations of human rights, including detention, imprisonment, and deportation of civil, political, and ideological activists; expulsion and detention of teachers and students; repression of the journalists and reporters; repression of religious and ethnic minorities; as well as the brutal treatment of the protesters in December 2017, August 2018, November 2019, and the protesters of Khuzestan in July 2021, will remain in the black record of Hassan Rouhani’s two terms in office.
In addition, Hassan Rouhani’s actions during the Covid-19 pandemic, with not providing vaccine, as well as refraining from quarantining the cities with concurrent economical support, leading to the death of hundreds of thousands of people, should be investigated in an International Court of Justice under the title of “deliberate murder of citizens”. According to Alireza Zali, the head of Covid-19 headquarter in Tehran, they have even presented false statistics to the World Health Organization.
Therefore, the United Nations, its Special Rapporteurs, and human rights activists, must try to hold Hassan Rouhani accountable for gross violations of human rights, as well as violations of the international conventions in support of, and respect for the people ‘s right to life and dignity. Hassan Rouhani must be brought to justice as a human rights violator and the cause of the death of hundreds of thousands of Iranians, during his eight-year presidency.
In this report, the Statistics Center of the Prisoners’ Rights League in Iran tries to show the catastrophic dimensions of the executions in Iran, by presenting the number of executions carried out during Hassan Rouhani’s eight-year presidency. It needs to be emphasized that the actual numbers of executions are undoubtedly more than the number recorded by human rights activists. The Iranian government has made every effort to ensure that executions are carried out in secret, with only a small number of the executions are officially reported by the state media. Attempts by human rights activists living in Iran, to report the executions, bear a significant risk. As under the Islamic Republic law, it can result in being arrested and imprisoned.
Description of the situation the prisoners go through before being executed, requires a separate report. However, briefly explaining, the prisoners undergo extra-legal interrogations, as well as torture from the very moment of their arrest, which is being done with the intention of obtaining forced confession from them, to be used as evidence and proof for the crime. They also go on trial without the right to counsel. There are many other examples of violating the human rights of the prisoners in Iran, the most horrible of which is the inhumane way, the sentenced to death prisoners are being treated before execution. In many cases, neither their families nor their lawyers are aware that the execution is going to be carried out. According to local activists, even the prisoners themselves are being informed of their execution just a few hours before being hanged.
According to the statistics, from the beginning of Hassan Rouhani’s presidency on August 3, 2013, until its end on August 3, 2021, at least 4,159 people have been executed in various parts of the country.
One of the main concerns in Iran is the secret executions. During Hassan Rouhani’s eight-year presidency, the official and state media in Iran, reported only about 30 percent of the executions, and the remaining 70 percent were revealed by the human rights activists and independent media.
Another gross violation of human rights which has been widely criticized by the international organizations, including the United Nations, is the execution of those who have been under 18 at the time of the alleged crime. Iran is one of the few countries in the world that continues to do so, despite the ban on the execution of juvenile prisoners under the international law. During Hassan Rouhani’s two terms in office, at least 52 prisoners, under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged crime, were executed.
Furthermore, according to the reports, during Rouhani’s presidency, at least 118 women were hanged. The real figure however, is thought to be higher.