Executed, charge unknown

This page keeps the memory of those who were executed, but whose charges were not stated by the sources that reported their execution. This list contains 1464 names, and according to the sources all of them were executed. The earliest date in this list is 31 Farvardin 1388 and the latest is 23 Mehr 1405. “Unknown charge” here means that none of our sources mentioned a charge for these people; not that there was no charge, and not that we have made any judgement about their guilt or innocence. Many of these executions reached the outside world only through a short news item, sometimes without a full name and without any description of the case.

Years, cities and the most frequent days

The number of executions without an announced charge in this list rose sharply in the final years: 399 names from 1403 and 394 names from 1404, compared with 14 names from 1388. The year 1402 with 188 names and the year 1401 with 95 names are also heavy. The most frequent city is Karaj with 142 names, followed by Zahedan with 89, Mashhad with 40, Tehran with 37, Shiraz with 36, Isfahan with 35 and Urmia with 33 names. Among the provinces, Alborz with 131 names and Sistan and Baluchestan with 103 names stand at the top. The day 19 Mordad 1389, with 12 names, is the heaviest day in this list; it is followed by 10 Bahman 1401 with 12 names and 20 Farvardin 1404 with 11 names.

The median age of those executed whose age is given in the sources is 35 years, and the oldest of them was 68 years old. In this list, 4 people were under 18 years of age at the time of recording in the sources; the execution of a child or adolescent, even when the charge is not stated, must be remembered separately. The lowest age recorded in the data is 2 years; such a figure is most likely a recording error in the source, and we are following it up in our review. At least 224 women are in this list, that is, women whose source explicitly mentioned that they were women.

Some lives from this list

Sadrollah Fazeli Zare was 37 years old and, according to the sources, “he worked as a cabinet maker and took care of his elderly mother.” He grew up in a large family with 10 brothers and sisters. The source writes about him: “Sadrollah was opposed to superstition.” And also: “He was inquisitive.” He was executed on 18 Ordibehesht 1402 in Arak Prison, without having had a last visit. On the same day and in the same prison, Yousef Khoob Imcheh was also executed; a man who, according to the source, “was married and the father of two sons and a little daughter.”

Mohammad Amini Dehaghani was a 37-year-old worker from Isfahan and the father of two daughters; the source writes: “His whole joy was his wife and his two daughters.” This sentence of his remains: “Tell everyone that I am innocent.” Shirin Alam Holi Atashgah was 29 years old and was executed on 19 Ordibehesht 1389 in Tehran. She had learned carpet weaving since childhood and, according to the source, “even in the worst conditions she smiled and said ‘this too shall pass’.” Her body was not handed over to her family.

Abdolrahim Seddighi, a 26-year-old herdsman who was married and had three children, was executed on 20 Ordibehesht 1388; the source says he “was very fond of sports, especially football.” Jalal Zahedi, 26 years old, a wrestler with a diploma in mechanics, was hanged in public on 13 Azar 1391 in Kermanshah, and his family learned of it only in the afternoon of the same day. Golmohammad Mohammadi, a 23-year-old citizen of Afghanistan who had lived in Isfahan since childhood, was executed in Tir 1405.

This list is not complete

These 1464 names are not all of those who were executed without an announced charge. The real number is higher, and the names of many have never been published; we add only a name for which a source exists. The largest share of the names on this page comes from the Iran Human Rights Society with 1032 cases, followed by the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with 305 cases, HRANA with 291 cases, Haalvsh with 280 cases, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network with 81 cases and the Center for Human Rights in Iran with 28 cases. Every name has at least one source, but some of these executions without a charge rest on only one source, and a charge or other details about them may become known in the future. For 255 people in this list, a description of their life is available. If you knew one of those executed, or know on what charge they were tried, share your memory or correction with us so that their memory remains more complete.