The 18th Annual report on the death penalty in Iran, by Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) and ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty), provides an assessment and analysis of death penalty trends in 2025 in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It sets out the number of executions in 2025, trends compared to previous years, the legislative framework and procedures, charges, geographic distribution and a monthly breakdown of executions. A list of women executed in 2025 is also included in the categories section on page 89. In 2025, Iran’s fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by the United Nations Human Rights Council took place, and recommendations on the death penalty issued by states as part of this procedure are included in Annex 4.
The report further documents the abolitionist movement within Iran, including “No Death Penalty Tuesdays”, the forgiveness movement and its contribution to reducing the use of the death penalty, and provides analysis on how the international community can contribute to limiting the scope of the death penalty in Iran.
The 2025 report is the result of hard work from IHRNGO members and supporters who took part in reporting, documenting, collecting, analysing and drafting its contents. We are especially grateful to IHRNGO sources inside Iran who incur a significant risk by reporting on unannounced and secret executions in prisons across all 31 provinces. Given the very difficult context, the lack of transparency and the obvious risks and limitations faced by human rights defenders in the Islamic Republic of Iran, this report does not give a complete picture of the use of the death penalty in the country.
Due to the lack of transparency in the Iranian judicial system and the pressure exerted on families, each year a number of reported executions cannot be confirmed through two independent sources and are therefore not included in the report. In 2025, IHRNGO received reports of 553 executions that could not be confirmed by two independent sources, a figure more than ten times higher than the annual number of unconfirmed execution reports in the previous four years, between 39 and 48. The authors cannot rule out the possibility that some of these reports are part of a disinformation campaign by the Islamic Republic aimed at discrediting human rights organisations. However, the report aims to provide the most complete and realistic figures possible under current circumstances. It does not include suspicious deaths in custody, people on death row who died in prison before execution or those killed under torture.
ECPM supports the preparation, editing, publication and distribution of this report as part of its international advocacy against the death penalty. To overcome the transparency issues surrounding data and information on the death penalty in Iran, a comprehensive strategy for distribution and dissemination is required. The overall aim of IHRNGO and ECPM in publishing this report is to call attention to and publicise the facts, in order to change national and international views on the situation of the death penalty in Iran, the world’s top executioner per capita.