In a statement, Türk urged Iranian authorities to halt all executions and move toward the abolition of the death penalty, saying that “such punishment has no place in our world”.

As well as expressing alarm at the rise in executions, he said the persistent lack of fair trial and due process guarantees was “deeply troubling”, with confessions allegedly obtained under torture and other ill-treatment.

“Several executions have reportedly been carried out in public. Some have reportedly been carried out only weeks after arrest,” he added.

“Twelve defendants were reportedly sentenced to death following a single three-hour closed-door hearing.”

There was no immediate comment from the Iranian government. But it has previously defended the use of the death penalty, saying it is limited to only “the most severe crimes”.

On Monday, Iran’s judiciary said it executed two men convicted of spying for Israel.

Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat were accused of sending coordinates, images and other information on sensitive military, law enforcement and security sites to Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence service during the current war and the 12-day conflict in June 2025, according to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency.

Last week, 19-year-old Arvin Kheirkhahan was executed after being convicted of the security-related charge of “enmity against God” over his alleged role in January’s unrest, Iran’s Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported, citing a source close to his family.

Another two men arrested during the protests, Abolfazl Sepahi Badjani and Amirhossein Safari Hosseinabadi, were executed in public in a square in Isfahan, according to HRANA.

They were among 12 people convicted of several charges, including “enmity against God” and “corruption on Earth”, in connection with the killing of four law enforcement officers on 8 January.

Two of their fellow defendants, Erfan Esfandiari and Gol Mohammad Mohammadi, were executed on 19 July.

UN human rights experts said the 12 were sentenced to death “in one hearing, in a closed courtroom and without clarity as to each defendant’s individual responsibility”, which violated established fair trial standards.

“I am alarmed by the rise in executions and death sentences issued in Iran since March and that capital punishment continues to be used to instill fear among the population and suppress dissent,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement, urging Iranian authorities to urgently halt all executions and move towards the abolition of the death penalty.

Widespread civilian protests against the Government began at the end of 2025 linked to economic unrest, soaring inflation and widespread shortages. The crackdown which followed led to thousands of deaths, with thousands more detained, together with a months-long internet blackout.

A independent UN fact-finding mission on Iran last month urged Iranian authorities to halt the executions of 10 men who took part in protests in Isfahan this year and strongly condemned the 19 July executions of two others sentenced to death in the same case.

Torture, ill-treatment

Since 19 March 2026, at least 56 people have been executed on national security-related charges, including 27 individuals in cases linked to protests at the start of the year, the UN rights chief said, adding that over 100 others are at risk of execution on similar charges.

Meanwhile, capital punishment for drug-related offences is also continuing at an alarming rate.

Confessions have allegedly been obtained under torture and other ill-treatment, he said, also highlighting serious due process violations, including allegations of unfair trials, public executions and death sentences issued after brief closed-door hearings.

Lack of fair trials

“Persistent lack of fair trial and due process guarantees are deeply troubling,” the High Commissioner said, noting that some sentences have reportedly been carried out only weeks after arrests had taken place.

Reports indicate that 12 defendants were sentenced to death following a single three-hour closed-door hearing.

“The death penalty is incompatible with the right to life and irreconcilable with human dignity,” he said. “Such punishment has no place in our world.”

“At a time when it is confronting multiple internal and external crises, it is attempting, through intensified repression and an increase in executions, to stage a display of power and project the message: ‘I am still here, and I still control the situation,'” he says.

At least 26 gangs operate in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas with “alarming levels of violence.” 

Some 1.4 million people have been forced to flee their homes and thousands more have died. 

A new UN human rights office report published on Tuesday in Geneva details the impacts of the expanding reach of gangs on Haitians’ human rights, amid persistent and deadly violence – more than 5,500 died as a result last year.

Gang expansion

During the same period, gangs have expanded their operations beyond the capital pushing into its outskirts and moving north into the Artibonite and Centre departments, the report states. 

Gangs have been able to “fortify strategic corridors and maintain dominance over critical maritime and overland routes that sustain their financing and operational resilience.”

Meanwhile, they have continued to terrorise the population by killing and kidnapping people, trafficking children, stealing at illegal checkpoints, extorting money from businesses, and destroying and ransacking public and private properties. 

Gangs targeted individuals perceived as cooperating with police or defying their authority. “Some victims were executed, their bodies often doused with gasoline and burned,” the report said.

 Disproportionate use of force

The violence involves not just gangs, but also Haitian security forces, private security contractors, and self-defence groups.

Almost 250 instances of “actual or attempted summary executions of suspected gang members or individuals believed to support gangs,” have been identified in the report as being carried out by the police, using “unnecessary or disproportionate” force.

Concern has also been raised about security operations carried out by a private military company, reportedly contracted by the Haitian Government, which has used drone strikes and helicopter gunfire. There is some doubt about the legality of this approach. 

“Some, or even most, of these drone strikes and helicopter operations could be described as targeted killings, given the apparent predetermined, intentional, and deliberate use of lethal force against individuals specifically identified in advance,” the report said, and “no investigation appears to have been opened by the judicial authorities to establish the legality of these operations.”

Self-defence groups and mobs armed with stones, machetes, and, increasingly, high-calibre firearms have engaged in so-called “popular justice,” leading to people suspected of gang affiliation being lynched, sometimes “allegedly encouraged, supported, or facilitated by police elements.”

UN support

The UN has continually emphasized that restoring security is essential to the stabilisation of Haiti, but it is not enough on its own. 

Without progress on governance, justice, accountability and social services, especially for young people, any security gains will be fragile. 

Sustained international backing is critical to breaking the cycle of violence and instability and to support in a Haitian-led effort to restore security.

The UN-backed Gang Suppression Force (GSF) established in 2025 and which is mandated to have 5,000 personnel is expected to play a key supporting role. 

Earlier in March, Daniela Kroslak was named as the head of the newly established United Nations Support Office in Haiti (UNSOH) which will provide logistical support to the GSF.

Anti-government protests have continued in Iran with thousands feared dead after the government crackdown on demonstrators.

One protester, 26-year-old Erfan Soltani, will reportedly be “executed tomorrow”, with the Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights saying they “have never witnessed a case move so quickly”.

The protests, which began in Tehran on 28 December, were sparked by the collapse of the Iranian currency.

BBC diplomatic correspondent Caroline Hawley tells us more.

Read more here.

The number of executions in Iran in 2025 has more than doubled compared to the amount which took place across the country in 2024.

Norwegian-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group told the BBC it had verified at least 1,500 executions up until the start of December, adding that many more have taken place since.

Last year, IHR was able to verify 975 executions – although the exact number is never completely clear as Iranian authorities do not give official figures.

However, the analysis shows another significant annual rise, and the figures chime with those provided by other monitoring groups.

Iran’s government has previously defended its use of the death penalty, saying it is limited to only “the most severe crimes”.

Execution figures were already on the rise before mass demonstrations broke out across the country in 2022 following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.

The 22-year-old Kurdish woman was detained by morality police in Tehran for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly”.

That protest movement represented the biggest challenge to the legitimacy of Iran’s theocratic leadership for many years.

In response, authorities intensified the rate of executions from around 520 in 2022 to 832 the following year – according to the figures verified by IHR.

There have been some executions for protesters or alleged spies – but 99% of those executed have been for murder or drug offences – a ratio which has remained constant.

Activists have said that the rate of executions in Iran increases when the regime feels under threat and that the aim is to forestall internal opposition by instilling fear in the population.

It seems to be borne out by the fact that since the 12-day war with Israel in June, as well as major setbacks for Iran’s proxy forces across the region, there’s been another big surge.

ESOHR

Reuters

Amnesty International

Human Rights Watch

UN human rights experts have said they are appalled by a “dramatic escalation” in the number of executions in Iran, with more than 1,000 people killed during the first nine months of 2025.

“The sheer scale of executions in Iran is staggering and represents a grave violation of the right to life,” the five special rapporteurs warned in a joint statement.

They noted that half of the known executions were for drug-related offences and that nine hangings per day on average had been documented in recent weeks.

There was no immediate comment from Iran. But the government has previously defended its use of the death penalty, saying it is limited to only “the most severe crimes”.

It comes on the same day as Iran said a man accused of spying for Israel had been executed.

The judiciary’s Mizan news agency named him as Bahman Choubi Asl and reported that he was a database expert who worked on “sensitive telecommunications projects” and was a “trusted spy” of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, without providing any evidence.

He was hanged on Monday after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal against his conviction on the charge of “corruption on Earth”, it added.

Mizan did not say when Asl was arrested, and his case had not previously been reported by Iranian media or human rights groups.

He was the 11th man convicted of spying for Israel to be executed by Iran this year, with 10 of the executions carried out since the 12-day war between the two countries in June.

Last week, Amnesty International and the Norway-based group Iran Human Rights said they had documented the executions of 1,000 people in Iran since January – already surpassing last year’s reported total of 975.

According to Iran Human Rights, 50% of those executed this year were accused of drug-related charges; 43% of murder; 3% of the security-related charges of “armed rebellion against the state”, “corruption on Earth” and “enmity against God”; and 1% of spying.

They included 28 women, 58 Afghan nationals and what Amnesty described as a disproportionate number of people from minority communities.

Both groups said the executions followed routinely unfair trials that were marred by allegations of torture and other ill-treatment.

“Iran appears to be conducting executions at an industrial scale that defies all accepted standards of human rights protection,” the UN special rapporteurs on human rights in Iran, arbitrary executions, minority issues, torture and other cruel punishment, and human rights in Afghanistan, warned on Monday.

The hanging of 499 people for drug-related offences was “particularly alarming”, they added.

Between 24 and 30 such executions were recorded per year from 2018 to 2020, following an amendment to Iran’s Law on Combating Illicit Drugs. However, the experts said the number has surged since 2021, with a total of 503 reported last year.

International law restricts capital punishment to only the “most serious crimes”. “Drug offences do not meet this threshold,” the experts warned.

Iran Human Rights reported on Sunday that more than 500 people convicted of drug-related offences were currently on death row at Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj alone, and that their sentences were all at the “implementation stage”.

Iran’s powerful constitutional watchdog the Guardian Council is also currently reviewing a draft espionage bill that redefines “collaboration with hostile states”, which is punishable by the death penalty, to include acts such as online communication, collaborating with foreign media, and so-called “ideological alignment”, according to the UN human rights office.

The UN experts said the international community could not “remain silent in the face of such systemic violations” and that states “must take concrete diplomatic action to pressure Iran to halt this execution spree”.

Footage has emerged showing the public executions of three men accused of being Israeli collaborators in Gaza City.

BBC Verify has verified that the location of the executions was a street outside Shifa hospital in the centre of the city, which is the focus of a major Israeli ground offensive.

Videos circulating on Sunday evening showed at least five armed and masked men, three blindfolded Palestinian men kneeling on the ground and a large crowd.

One of the armed men is heard saying: “The death sentence has been decided for all collaborators”.

There are cheers before the three men are pushed to the ground and shot several times in the back of the head. The crowd then praises Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades.

A Palestinian security official from the Hamas-run Gaza government told Reuters that the executions were carried out by the “Joint Operations Room of the Palestinian resistance”.

This is a rare instance in which a public execution in Gaza has been captured on video. There have been previous reports of Hamas using violence on those who dissent. In May, Hamas-led groups reportedly executed four Palestinians for looting aid trucks.

In Sunday’s footage, one armed man singles out Yasser Abu Shabab as a “major collaborator” who they seek to kill.

Abu Shabab is major figurehead of a clan which has reportedly been armed by the Israeli government. It has been operating in Rafah, in an area under Israeli military control. The group has presented itself as an opposition force to Hamas.

In July Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Israel was arming clans in Gaza that he said were opposed to Hamas. However, Yasser Abu Shabab posted online to “categorically reject” that Israel had supplied his group’s weapons.

That same month, a senior officer in Hamas’s security forces told the BBC that the Palestinian armed group had lost much of its control over the Gaza Strip and that armed clans were filling the void.

Abu Shabab’s armed group has been advertising for recruits on social media, Reuters reported. The news agency quoted residents and sources close to Hamas as saying that other groups opposed to Hamas had also emerged in parts of northern Gaza and near Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Israeli troops meanwhile have continued to operate in Gaza City. The Israeli military said troops had “dismantled military infrastructure used by Hamas” and killed a Hamas cell that had attacked Israeli soldiers, wounding an officer.

It has said its objectives are to free the hostages still held by Hamas and defeat up to 3,000 fighters in what it has described as the group’s “main stronghold”.

However, the offensive on Gaza’s biggest urban area, where one million people were living and a famine was confirmed last month, has drawn widespread international condemnation.

Last week a spokeswoman for the UN’s humanitarian office said she had seen a constant stream of Palestinians heading south during a recent visit to the city, but that hundreds of thousands remained in the city. She described the situation in the city as “cataclysmic”.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 65,344 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.