Capital Punishment in Iran: Offenses, Courts, and Methods

Capital punishment in Iran is authorized by the 2013 Islamic Penal Code for a wide range of offenses, including drug trafficking, murder, armed rebellion, blasphemy, adultery, and same-sex relations, and it is carried out at one of the highest rates in the world. Monitoring organizations recorded at least 975 executions in 2024 and more than 1,000 in just the first nine months of 2025.¹ For 2025 as a whole, at least 1,639 executions were documented, a record high.² Iran also remains one of the few countries that continues to execute people for offenses committed as children, despite treaty obligations that prohibit the practice.

The Three Categories That Decide a Death Sentence

Iranian criminal law sorts offenses into three categories, and the category determines whether a death sentence is mandatory, negotiable, or discretionary. Anyone trying to understand how a specific case might end has to start here.

Hudud: Fixed Punishments

Hudud offenses are crimes for which the type, amount, and method of punishment are considered fixed by Islamic law. Article 13 of the Islamic Penal Code defines them as offenses “for which the type, amount, and quality of punishment are determined by Sharia.”³ Once the evidentiary requirements are met, a judge cannot reduce the sentence. Hudud crimes include adultery, same-sex relations, armed robbery (moharebeh), rebellion (baghy), theft, false accusation of sexual crimes, and consumption of alcohol.⁴ Several of these carry the death penalty under specified conditions.

Qisas: Retribution That Belongs to the Family

Qisas applies to intentional murder and certain serious physical injuries. The defining feature is that the punishment belongs to the victim’s family, not the state. In a murder case, the heirs of the deceased hold the right to demand execution, accept diya (blood money), or grant forgiveness.⁵ The choice between life and death sits in private hands.

The diya amount is set each year by the Head of the Judiciary under Article 549. Under Iranian law, a woman’s diya is generally half that of a man’s, though this disparity does not apply in traffic accident cases covered by third-party insurance. Diya for Muslims and non-Muslims is set at equal amounts under Article 554.³ Families who cannot afford to forgo the payment sometimes feel pushed toward execution, while wealthier defendants can negotiate their way off death row.

Ta’zir: Discretionary State Penalties

Ta’zir covers offenses outside the fixed divine categories, where judges have discretion. Most ta’zir sentences involve prison or fines, but some offenses deemed sufficiently severe carry death. Drug trafficking is the most significant example and accounts for a large share of Iran’s annual death sentences.

What Can Get You Executed

The list of capital crimes is broader than in most countries that retain the death penalty. Offenses that would draw a prison term elsewhere can end in a hanging in Iran.

Drug Trafficking

Drug offenses drive a large share of Iran’s executions. The country sits along a major trafficking route from Afghanistan, and the government treats large-scale drug crimes as national security threats. Amendments passed in 2017 raised the quantity thresholds substantially, requiring at least 50 kilograms of opium, 2 kilograms of heroin, or 3 kilograms of methamphetamine before the death penalty applies.⁶ Additional conditions now require that the offender be a ringleader, have used weapons, or have prior drug convictions. Even with these limits, drug charges remain one of the most common paths to the gallows.

Murder

Intentional murder is not punished with a statutory death sentence but with qisas, meaning the victim’s family decides. Some convicted murderers are executed. Others walk free after the family accepts diya or grants forgiveness. Reconciliation campaigns by NGOs and the judiciary sometimes persuade families to accept blood money, but no family is obliged to show mercy. In one documented case, a victim’s family reversed its agreement to accept diya after learning the defendant was Jewish.⁷

Moharebeh and Baghy

Moharebeh, often translated as “waging war against God,” is defined under Article 279 as drawing a weapon to threaten people’s lives, property, or safety in a way that creates public insecurity. It covers conduct ranging from armed robbery to political violence. Article 282 provides four possible punishments: death by hanging, crucifixion, amputation of the right hand and left foot, or banishment.⁸ The judge chooses among them.

Baghy, or armed rebellion, was introduced in the 2013 code and did not exist in the earlier version. Article 287 defines it as membership in a group that stages an armed uprising against the Islamic Republic and provides a mandatory death sentence for members who used weapons.³ Before 2013, political dissidents and opposition members were typically charged with moharebeh; baghy gave prosecutors a more direct tool for targeting organized opposition.

Corruption on Earth

Efsad-fil-arz, or “corruption on earth,” is an expansive charge used against conduct the government considers deeply destabilizing to the social, economic, or moral order. It has been applied to large-scale fraud, political sabotage, and repeated criminal behavior.⁹ The vagueness of the definition gives prosecutors wide latitude, and the charge is heard in the Revolutionary Courts.

Blasphemy, Adultery, and Same-Sex Relations

Insulting the Prophet of Islam (sabb al-nabi) is a capital offense under Article 262. The same provision extends to insults against the twelve Shia Imams and Fatimah.¹⁰ Both moharebeh and sabb al-nabi have been described as vaguely defined charges often used for political purposes.¹¹

Adultery committed under specific aggravating conditions can be punished by stoning; where stoning is not feasible, the court may substitute hanging if the offense was proven through witness testimony.¹⁰ The last confirmed stoning execution took place in 2009, though stoning sentences have continued to be issued.

Same-sex relations between men (lavat) are punishable by death under Article 234. The receptive partner faces a mandatory death sentence regardless of circumstances. The insertive partner faces death if force was used or if he meets the legal condition of ihsan, meaning he has access to a permanent marriage; otherwise the sentence is 100 lashes.¹² Consensual sexual conduct between adults, in private, is a capital crime under Iranian law.

Executions for Crimes Committed as a Child

Iran is one of very few countries that continues to execute people for offenses committed before age 18. The practice persists despite Iran’s ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits capital punishment for anyone under 18 at the time of the offense.¹³

The reason is how Iranian law defines adulthood. Article 147 sets the age of maturity at nine lunar years for girls and fifteen lunar years for boys.³ A girl as young as eight years and nine months by the solar calendar can be held fully criminally responsible for a capital offense. Once a child crosses this threshold, the law treats them as an adult for hudud and qisas crimes.

Article 91 of the 2013 code introduced a limited exception. Offenders who were under 18 at the time of the crime may receive an alternative sentence if the court determines they lacked “adequate mental maturity and the ability to reason.”¹⁴ The court may, but need not, request a forensic evaluation.³ The defense carries the entire burden, and the provision applies only to hudud and qisas offenses. Article 91 has not ended juvenile executions. Many young offenders remain on death row until they turn 18, at which point the sentence is carried out. Application varies widely between courtrooms, and in qisas cases the family’s expectations weigh heavily on the outcome.

How Capital Trials Work

The courts that handle most capital cases in Iran operate under rules that fall far short of international fair trial standards, and the gap between what the law says and what happens in practice is where the deepest problems sit.

Revolutionary Courts

Revolutionary Courts operate as a parallel judicial system with exclusive jurisdiction over national security offenses, drug trafficking, espionage, moharebeh, corruption on earth, and several other categories. They produce the vast majority of Iran’s death sentences.¹⁵ A defendant facing execution is more likely to be tried here than in an ordinary criminal court.

Restrictions on Lawyers

Under a note to Article 48 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, defendants in national security cases and cases covered by Article 302 must choose their lawyer from a list approved by the Head of the Judiciary during the investigation phase. Revolutionary Courts frequently deny defendants any access to legal representation during investigation, and lawyers who take on politically sensitive cases face threats, intimidation, and imprisonment.¹⁶ Many capital defendants meet a lawyer, if at all, only after the investigation is over and confessions have been extracted.

Forced Confessions

Confessions obtained through physical and psychological torture, prolonged solitary confinement, and threats against family members are routinely used as evidence in capital trials.¹⁷ The government also broadcasts televised confessions, sometimes before trial, and defendants are pressured to repeat these accounts in court. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has found that judicial proceedings in capital cases “consistently indicated that the judicial proceedings did not fulfil the requirements for due process and a fair trial under international human rights law.”¹⁸

Appeals, Clemency, and Family Forgiveness

Iranian law provides several post-conviction routes off death row, though each has significant limits.

Death sentences are subject to review by Iran’s Supreme Court before they can be carried out. The Supreme Leader holds the power to grant clemency or commute death sentences, typically exercised on religious or national holidays based on recommendations from the Head of the Judiciary.¹⁹

In qisas cases the picture is different. Because the right to demand execution belongs to the victim’s family, state clemency cannot override the family’s decision. If the family insists on execution, neither the judge nor the Supreme Leader can prevent it. If the family forgives, the state cannot carry out the sentence. Whether a condemned person can hope for clemency, then, depends on the identity of the crime and who holds the power over the sentence.

How Executions Are Carried Out

Hanging is Iran’s primary method and has been the only method used with any regularity in recent years. Most hangings take place inside prison facilities, with a judge, physician, and sometimes the victim’s family present. Public executions use construction cranes to hoist the condemned person, causing death by slow strangulation rather than a rapid neck fracture.²⁰ Public executions are conducted in city squares and other visible locations and are typically advertised in advance.

Stoning remains legally available for certain forms of adultery under the code, though the last confirmed stoning was in 2009. Courts have continued to issue stoning sentences in the years since, some of which have been converted to other punishments on appeal.

Under Iranian law, an inmate’s lawyer is entitled to 48 hours’ notice before an execution. That requirement is routinely ignored. Juvenile offenders have been executed without any prior warning to lawyers or families.²¹ Secret executions, carried out without informing family members at all, have also been documented in politically sensitive cases.

Who Gets Executed

Iran’s death penalty falls disproportionately on certain groups. The number of Afghan nationals executed more than tripled from 25 in 2023 to 80 in 2024, reflecting both the scale of drug trafficking prosecutions and the vulnerability of foreign nationals within the system.²² Ethnic minorities, particularly Baluch and Kurdish communities, are heavily represented among those executed for national security and political offenses, with Kurdish dissidents frequently charged with moharebeh or baghy for alleged connections to opposition groups.²³

Women face the death penalty under the same provisions as men, with at least 164 women executed between 2010 and 2021.²³ Women convicted under qisas face an additional structural disadvantage: because a woman’s diya value is set at half that of a man’s, the financial equation of forgiveness shifts when a woman is the victim and her family weighs the compensation offered.

The Gap With International Law

Iran has ratified both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and its domestic practices routinely violate both. The ICCPR limits the death penalty to “the most serious crimes,” a standard the UN Human Rights Committee has interpreted to cover only intentional killing.²⁴ Executions for drug offenses, adultery, same-sex relations, and blasphemy fall well outside that threshold. The Convention on the Rights of the Child flatly prohibits capital punishment for anyone under 18 at the time of the offense, a prohibition Iran ignores through its lower age-of-maturity standard and inconsistent application of Article 91.¹³

The 2013 amendments were initially presented as a reform opportunity but retained the death penalty for most previously eligible crimes and added new ones, including baghy.²⁵ The 2017 drug law amendments did reduce the number of people eligible for execution on trafficking charges, but the overall trajectory has moved toward more executions, not fewer.

1
Amnesty International. Iran: Over 1,000 People Executed as Authorities Step Up Horrifying Assault on Right to Life
2
ECPM. Iran – At Least 1,639 Executions in 2025, a Deadly Record
3
UNODC. Islamic Penal Code of Iran
4
Learning Partnership. Islamic Penal Code of Iran – English Translation
5
ECPM. The Death Penalty in Law and in Practice – Iran
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Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. Iranian Lawmakers Vote to End Death Penalty for Some Drug-Related Crimes
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Iran Human Rights. 2024 Executions for Murder Charges in Iran
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Refworld. Iran – Islamic Penal Code
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Iran Human Rights. Death Penalty in Iran – Legislations and Procedures
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ecoi.net. Query Response on Iran – Death Penalty
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United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Iran Annual Report 2020
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Human Dignity Trust. Iran Country Profile
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Iran Human Rights. UN Stresses Execution of Child Offenders in Iran Absolutely Prohibited by International Law
14
Iran Human Rights. Juvenile Offender Executions in 2022
15
ecoi.net. Iran – The Revolutionary Court System, Including Procedures and Documents Issued by the Courts
16
ELDH. Protection of Lawyers in Iran
17
Iran Human Rights. Forced Televised Confessions
18
International Bar Association. Iran – IBAHRI Condemns Mass Application of the Death Penalty and Reiterates Calls for End to Unfair Trials
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21
Amnesty International. a href=”https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/iran-government-must-halt-execution-of-man-convicted-for-murder-that-occurred-when-he-was-15-years-old/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Iran – Government Must Halt Execution of Man Convicted for Murder That Occurred When He Was 15 Years Old
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Amnesty International. Iran – Over 1,000 People Executed as Authorities Step Up Horrifying Assault on Right to Life
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Iran Human Rights. Women and the Death Penalty in Iran – A 12 Year Analysis
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University of Essex Human Rights Centre. Iran, The ICCPR and the Key Requirements of Article 6
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Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. The Death Penalty in Iran – No Improvement and Broken Promises