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At least 850 people were executed in Iran in the last 15 months, a UN official stated on Monday, emphasizing the worsening human rights situation in the country under President Hassan Rouhani.
Ahmed Shaheed, the UN’s rights rapporteur for Iran, said that the “surge in executions” has resulted in Iran having the world’s highest death penalty rate per capita.
“The range of capital crimes is shocking. We have seen a person executed for making a donation to a foreign organization”, Shaheed said.
He added that he was “shocked” by 26-year-old Reyhaneh Jabbari’s execution; Jabbari was hanged after being convicted of murdering an intelligence officer who she claimed sexually assaulted her. Shaheed also said that he had raised questions about the fairness of Jabbari’s trial several times.
According to Shaheed, Iran has now executed 852 people, including eight juveniles, since last June. On Tuesday, the envoy submitted his report to the UN General Assembly.
Shaheed said that the surge in executions prove that Rouhani has not delivered on his campaign promise of improving the human rights situation even a year after he took office.
“He is unable to address the issues, unable to arrest this trend, to convert his promises which spoke to arresting this trend into action”, he said.
Additionally, he suggested that Rouhani may not have political backing in the Iranian Parliament to advance his human rights campaign.
Since being appointed to his post in 2011, Shaheed has not been allowed to visit Iran; however, he has managed to speak to around 400 Iranians, using Skype and sometimes even taking calls from prison.
Shaheed also conveyed concerns from Iranians that negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program have taken precedence to human rights issues in the country. However, he said that he did not see a shift in emphasis away from human rights from countries like South Africa, Brazil and the United States.