6 June 2025. There has been a dramatic rise in the execution of Afghan nationals in Iran. In 2024, at least 80 Afghan men were executed in Iran, a three-fold increase compared to the previous year. These executions are carried out in silence and without transparency. Only six of the 80 executions were announced through official sources.
This trend has continued into 2025, with at least 32 Afghan nationals executed in the first five months of the year.
The Islamic Republic has demonstrated that it acts with impunity when it comes to executing the most marginalised and impoverished communities whose executions do not have any political cost.
Given the internal political circumstances in Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic also does not feel obligated to grant consular access to Afghan nationals. If these executions continue to be costless for the Islamic Republic, we fear that dozens more Afghan nationals will be executed in the coming months.
We emphasise that legal proceedings, particularly those related to the death penalty, do not meet the minimum fair trial standards and confessions are often extracted under torture and coercion.
Furthermore, the anti-immigration wave, especially anti-Afghan sentiment fuelled by the government to divert public attention from its economic mismanagement, paves the way for further reducing the political cost of their execution.
We, the undersigned, call on all human rights organisations, activists, political figures and the public to express their opposition to the execution of Afghan nationals by any means possible. We also urge the international community to take appropriate action to prevent the continuation of this trend.