More than 800 people have been executed in Iran since the start of the year, the UN said on Friday, decrying “a systematic pattern of using the death penalty as a tool of state intimidation”.
The United Nations rights office said there had been a “major increase in executions during the first half of 2025”.
“Iranian authorities have executed at least 841 people since the beginning of the year and up until August 28, 2025,” spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva, warning that “the real situation might be different. It might be worse, given the lack of transparency”.
In July alone, she said Iran had executed at least 110 individuals – double the number of people executed in July 2024.
“The high number of executions indicates a systematic pattern of using the death penalty as a tool of state intimidation, with disproportionate targeting of ethnic minorities and migrants,” she cautioned.
Shamdasani in particular lamented the use of public executions in Iran, with the rights office documenting seven such cases since the beginning of the year.
“Public executions add an extra layer of outrage upon human dignity … not only on the dignity of the people concerned, the people who are executed, but also on all those who have to bear witness,” she said.
