Three Baluch men sentenced to death on drug-related charges have been secretly executed in Ghaen Prison over the past three months.
The Baluch Activists Campaign has reported that three Baluch men have been executed on drug-related charges in Ghaen Prison in South Khorasan province within the last three months. Their identities have been revealed as Abdolrahman Saberinia, 20 year-old Mehrshad Sheh-Bakhsh and Abdolraouf Totazehi.
According to the report which does not provide the exact dates of their executions, Abdolrahman Saberinia and Mehrshad Sheh-Bakhsh were executed in March and Abdolraouf Totazehi was executed in the last month.
At the time of writing, none of their executions have been announced by domestic media or officials in Iran.
It has been almost four years since an Article was added to the Anti-Narcotics Law in 2017 to limit death sentences specifically and provide a general degree of reprieve in some cases. However, while the numbers reduced that year, the death penalty is still being used in drug-related cases.
According to Iran Human Rights’ Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran, at least 25 people were executed on drug-related charges in 2020. In 2021, at least 25 people have so far been executed on drug-related charges. On May 3, IHR published a report on the death penalty in the first four months of 2021 expressing concern at the significant increase in the number of drug-related executions and continues to warn of the continuation of this trend.
The wave of executions of Baluch citizens which began in late 2020 has also continued, with at least 18 Baluch prisoners having been executed so far in 2021.
Source » iranhr