At the end of 2025, Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, released a written assessment revealing an unprecedented rise in executions and an intensification of political and civil repression by the Islamic Republic.

Sato described 2025 as one of the darkest years for human rights in Iran, noting that following military and security tensions, civic space was further restricted and a broad wave of arrests intensified under charges such as “espionage” and “collaboration with the enemy.”

According to the report, even after the June ceasefire, pressure did not ease. Instead, systematic repression expanded, with journalists, civil activists, and national and religious minorities—including Kurds—being disproportionately targeted.

A central warning in the report concerns the sharp increase in executions. Sato stated that in just the first ten months of 2025, more than 1,200 people were executed in Iran. With an average of three to four executions per day, Iran has become the country with the highest per capita use of the death penalty worldwide.

She emphasized that less than 10 percent of these executions are officially announced and that many cases involve forced confessions and denial of effective access to legal counsel.

At the same time, the annual report by the human rights website HRANA documented at least 1,922 executions in Iran in 2025—an increase of 106 percent compared to the previous year—indicating the institutionalization of the death penalty within Iran’s judicial system.

Sato stressed that executions in Iran are not a tool for combating crime but rather “a political weapon to intimidate society.” She warned that continued silence and impunity will lead to the normalization of state killings and the complete erosion of the right to life and human dignity in Iran.