Thousands of people in Iran face the risk of execution amid what Amnesty International on Wednesday called a deepening execution crisis, with death sentences handed down after unfair trials and on vaguely worded charges such as enmity against God and corruption on earth.
The rights group said more than 800 people had been executed in 2025 so far, nearly double the pace of last year, and warned that thousands more remain under investigation or prosecution on capital charges, including drug-related offences and accusations of espionage.
Since the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, Amnesty said, Iranian authorities have “weaponized the death penalty as a tool of oppression”.
In June, following Israel’s airstrikes and a 12-day war with Iran, officials intensified calls for swift trials and executions for those accused of collaborating with Israel. Parliament has also advanced legislation to expand the use of capital punishment, pending approval by the Guardian Council.
“The authorities are carrying out executions on a horrific scale,” Amnesty said, urging Tehran to halt all planned executions, quash existing sentences, and declare an official moratorium with a view to abolition.
According to the UN Office for Human Rights, at least 841 executions were carried out between January and late August, compared with 429 during the same period in 2024.
Rights monitors say executions are disproportionately affecting minorities, including Afghans, Baluchis and Kurds.
The warning comes days after Iran executed protester Mehran Bahramian in Isfahan despite allegations of torture and international appeals to halt his sentence. He was the latest detainee from the 2022 unrest to be put to death on charges of “enmity against God.”
Iran’s judiciary has defended its use of capital punishment as enforcement of Islamic law and a deterrent against serious crime, particularly drug trafficking.
But rights groups argue Revolutionary Courts lack independence and routinely deny defendants fair trial rights, including access to lawyers and protection from torture.
Amnesty said rhetoric from senior officials, including Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, calling for “1988-style executions” against perceived collaborators, has fueled fears of mass killings reminiscent of past prison massacres.
“Iran accounted for nearly two-thirds of all known executions worldwide in 2024,” Amnesty said. “The current trajectory shows an even darker year ahead unless immediate action is taken.”
Colonel Einollah Jahani, the former deputy head of Iran’s traffic police, told ISNA news agency on Wednesday that Article 20 of the country’s traffic law currently tasks the police with issuing motorcycle licenses for men but is silent on women.
“From a legal perspective, this article only clarifies the police’s duty toward men and does not prohibit issuing licenses to women,” he said. “The silence of the law has created a gap that must be resolved by parliament.”
The government has submitted a bill to parliament to address the issue, state media has reported, but Jahani said that some lawmakers remain uneasy over how women would observe Islamic dress codes while riding.
He argued the concern was misplaced: “Both men and women must wear helmets, and helmets provide the necessary coverage to meet hijab requirements. This is a safety obligation that also addresses religious concerns.”
Iran’s traffic police chief, Brigadier General Teymour Hosseini, said earlier this week that any licensing of women would require formal changes to bylaws and law, and that the force was “awaiting an official notification on women’s motorcycling so we can proceed.”
Women have been legally allowed to own and register motorcycles in their name, but licensing has been withheld, leaving many to ride without permits in a legal gray zone.
Jahani said this inconsistency should be corrected: “There is no prohibition for women to own motorcycles under the constitution. They can hold official registration papers in their own name, so logically they should also be able to obtain licenses.”
He added that women have increasingly demanded the right to ride motorcycles, citing economic pressures, traffic congestion and the need for affordable transportation.
“In the past there was no demand, but today motorcycling has become a social demand,” he said, noting that research shows women generally drive more cautiously than men.
The debate comes against the backdrop of wider calls for women’s rights in Iran since the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody, which ignited nationwide protests.
Conservative clerics have resisted moves to permit public motorcycling by women, arguing it could breach social norms, but reformist officials say formal training courses can provide a workable compromise.
Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote, “The message of the Zionist entity’s recent crime in Qatar is clear: O countries of the region! Prepare yourselves for my coming domination.”
His comments came a day after Israeli warplanes bombed a Hamas office in Doha, in what Israel called an operation against the group’s senior leadership. Qatar condemned the attack as “criminal and cowardly,” while Iran labeled it an “extremely dangerous” violation of sovereignty and international law.
President Masoud Pezeshkian also condemned the strike as an “illegal, inhumane and anti-peace action,” telling Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani by phone that Tehran stood in solidarity with its Persian Gulf neighbor. “Attacking an independent country is a clear violation of national sovereignty and the UN Charter,” he said.
The strike in Doha, coordinated with Washington according to Israeli media, killed members of Hamas’s political bureau, though both Qatar and Hamas gave no details on casualties. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later insisted the raid was “a wholly independent Israeli operation.”
Hamas, which has based its political leadership in Qatar for years, said its ceasefire delegation had survived the attack and accused the United States of enabling Israel’s actions while presenting itself as mediator.
The incident comes as Iran recalibrates its foreign policy after a June war with Israel and the United States devastated its military and nuclear infrastructure.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has in recent weeks sought Qatari mediation with the West, and Larijani is seen as a potential lead negotiator in renewed nuclear talks as UN sanctions loom.
Iranian media and analysts have floated his possible return to leading nuclear negotiations, amid suggestions the Supreme National Security Council could regain control of the dossier as Tehran faces looming UN sanctions under the European-triggered “snapback” mechanism.
The strike on Qatar marks a dangerous new front in a region still unsettled by June’s 12-day war, when Israeli and US forces targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities and military infrastructure.
"I am pleased to report that Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton Student, whose sister is an American Citizen, was just released by Kata’ib Hezbollah (MILITANT Hezbollah), and is now safely in the American Embassy in Iraq after being tortured for many months," Trump wrote on Truth Social, without elaborating.
"I will always fight for JUSTICE, and never give up. HAMAS, RELEASE THE HOSTAGES, NOW!"
Tsurkov, a PhD student at Princeton University in New Jersey and fellow at the New Lines Institute, disappeared in March 2023 while conducting research in Iraq.
Her sister Emma confirmed Tsurkov's release after 903 days in captivity and thanked the Trump administration.
No group among Iraq's kaleidoscope of armed militias had claimed responsibility for her disappearance. Israeli officials believed she was being held by Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shi’ite militia.
While the group has denied involvement, an Iraqi official had told Israel’s Channel 11 that she was first detained by Iraq’s intelligence service—or by individuals impersonating officers—before being transferred to the militia.
Kata’ib Hezbollah is one of several Iran-backed and funded armed groups which took part in Iraq's conflict against Islamic State militants but amassed power and influence by maintaining their arms after the fighting largely winded down.
While no official comment was made on the case by Tehran, an Iraqi security source told Iran International that among those considered for the exchange was Mohammadreza Nouri, a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force.
Nouri was sentenced to life imprisonment in Iraq in September 2023 for orchestrating the murder of American citizen Stephen Troell in Baghdad in November 2022. It was not clear if he was ultimately released.
