Executed for murder (qisas)

This page keeps the memory of 2801 people who were executed on charges of murder and under a sentence of qisas (retribution in kind). This is the largest group among the charge pages. The earliest execution recorded in this list dates back to 17 Farvardin 1388 and the latest to 15 Mehr 1405. The charge that appears here is the one that the authorities or sources announced; recording it does not mean accepting anyone's guilt. In a number of these cases, those executed had themselves said that a confession had been extracted under pressure, or that they had taken the blame for a killing in place of someone else. Qisas means that the family of the victim could have forgiven and did not, and sometimes even carried out the sentence themselves.

Years and cities

The number of qisas executions in this list rises to an unprecedented level in 1404: 1013 names have been recorded from this single year alone, whereas in 1403 the number was 171, and in 1401, the year with the most names before it, 183. From 1405 so far, 170 names have been recorded. All five of the heaviest days in this list also belong to the year 1404: 26 Azar and 1 Bahman 1404 with 16 executions each, 21 Bahman with 15 executions, and 28 Aban and 24 Dey with 14 executions each.

Karaj with 305 names is the most frequent city, followed by Urmia with 180, Shiraz with 140, Kermanshah with 126, Zahedan with 124, Tabriz with 105, Sanandaj with 90 and Rasht with 85 names. Among the provinces, Alborz with 288 and West Azerbaijan with 235 names are at the top. The median age of those executed is 32 years, and the oldest of them was 72 years old. The lowest age given in the data is 10 years, which is most likely a recording error in the source. 6 people in this list were under 18 years of age, and there are also 256 women in it whose source stated that they were women.

Women who were executed under qisas

Many of the women in this list had been married off as children. Seyedeh Fatemeh Salbehi was forced into marriage at the age of 15 and, according to the source, “was only 17 years old at the time of the killing.” She was executed at the age of 23, on 21 Mehr 1394, in Adelabad Prison in Shiraz. She herself had said: “I told the police investigator exactly this, but they did not believe it and said you are lying.” Safiyeh Ghafouri, 28 years old, a homemaker, according to the source “wrote very well, liked to study and read books”; she was hanged on 22 Tir 1391 in the same prison.

Zeinab Sekaanvand Lokran “married when she was only 15 years old” and was repeatedly abused by her husband. Her child was stillborn in Urmia Prison, and she herself was executed on 10 Mehr 1397, without her lawyer being informed, at the age of 24. Sharareh Elyasi was also 16 years old when she married because of her family's poverty; an acquaintance described her as “a beautiful, cheerful, warm-hearted, kind and well-dressed person.” She was executed at the age of 22, on 22 Aban 1397, in Sanandaj Prison.

Children who grew up to be executed

Abolfazl Chezani Sharahi was the child of a poor family on the outskirts of Qom and, after the second year of middle school, worked in a sohan (Qom brittle) workshop. The source writes: “In his school years he mostly played football or went to the Atari club.” He was executed at the age of 18, on 6 Tir 1397, in Qom Prison, and the father of the victim himself pulled the stool from under his feet. These words of those close to him remain: “Execution for a 14-year-old child is far from humanity.” Jahangir Dehghani, 28 years old, a waste-recycling worker and a hafiz of the Quran (one who has memorised it), was, together with his brother Jamshid, the breadwinner of an old and sick father and mother.

About this list

This list is not complete; the real number of qisas executions is higher, and the names of many were never published. We list only a name that has a source. The largest share of the qisas names comes from the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with 1166 cases; followed by the Iran Human Rights Society with 1048, HRANA with 822, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network with 444 and Iran Human Rights with 131 cases. Every name has at least one source, and some only one. For 158 people a description of their life is available. If you knew one of these 2801 people, send us your memory or correction.