ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran executed at least 85 prisoners in October, including six held on political charges, bringing the total number of executions recorded in the country since the beginning of 2026 to at least 689 as of October 31, according to a rights group.
In a report released Sunday, the Oslo-based Hengaw Organization for Human Rights said the executions were carried out in prisons across Iran, marking a 25 percent increase from September, when at least 68 prisoners, including four women and four political detainees, were executed.
Iranian authorities do not publish the news of most executions carried out in the country, a task left for human rights organisations to verify and validate reports by citizen journalists or relatives of those executed.
Hengaw said it had verified the identities of 83 of those executed, while investigations were ongoing to establish the identities of the remaining two.
Other human rights organizations such as the Norway-based Iran Human Rights have said that 690 prisoners including two who were under the age of 18.
Iranian forces have long used executions and public hangings as tools to quell protests and stifle public dissent, underscoring growing concerns among human rights organizations over the use of capital punishment.
Of the 85 executions recorded in October, only 10 cases were reported by Iranian state media or judiciary-affiliated websites, according to Hengaw.
"The death sentences of nine prisoners were carried out secretly - without notifying their families or granting them the right to a final visit," Hengaw said, noting that two prisoners were executed in public.
Hengaw said six political prisoners and individuals arrested in connection with the January protests and the war with the US were executed in October on charges including moharebeh (enmity against God), espionage and armed rebellion.
According to Hengaw's report, "premeditated murder" was the most common charge among those executed in October, accounting for 49 cases, followed by drug-related offences with 29 executions.
Iran Human Rights (IHR) reported Saturday that five prisoners had been executed in Shiraz Central Prison, also known as Adel-Abad, on October 27 and November 1.
The five executions had not been announced by Iranian state media or official authorities at the time of IHR's report.
IHR also warned that 12 other prisoners held in Adel-Abad Prison were at imminent risk of execution after their death sentences were upheld by Iran's Supreme Court and their case files were forwarded to the prison's sentence implementation department.
Marking "World Day Against the Death Penalty," the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) on October 10 released a report documenting at least 2,003 executions across Iran based on 1,857 reports from October 10, 2025 to October 8, 2026 - approximately "one person every 4.35 hours" - denoting an increase of approximately 29 percent compared with the previous reporting period.
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