September 2025 Report: One Woman Executed Every 4 Days in Iran

One Woman Executed Every 4 Days in Iran: Mullahs Set Grim Human-Rights Record

14 women have been executed in two months

September 2025 Report: One Woman Executed Every 4 Days in Iran

October 10, the World Day Against the Death Penalty, is a reminder of the global community’s commitment to defending the most fundamental right to life and fighting one of the most brutal forms of human rights violations. This year, that day arrives amid a wave of executions instituted by the theocratic regime in Iran — and women have not been exempted.

For this reason, the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance Iran has devoted its September report to this issue, calling on the international community and organizations defending human rights and women’s rights to take immediate action to stop this death-machine.

Over the past 9 months, the clerical regime has executed about 1,175 prisoners, including 38 women and 7 children. At least 9 executions have been carried out in public. The clerical regime’s judiciary, operating under the direct oversight of Khamenei as Velayat-e Faqih (theocratic supreme guardian), sends political prisoners, women, and impoverished sectors of society to the gallows without fair trial.

Currently, in Qezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, thousands of prisoners are in line for execution.

Rising Trend and Record-Breaking Executions of Women

• Since the start of 2025, at least 38 women have been executed in Iran.
• Between July 30 and September 30, the regime executed 14 women, which amounts to executing one woman every four days.
• Compared to previous years — 34 women executed in all of 2024, 26 in 2023, and 15 in 2022 — these figures indicate an unprecedented rise in executions of women in Iran and intensifying repression of women in a society where women have often been at the forefront and leading the uprisings.

• With a high number of executions of women—recorded at a minimum of 300 cases since 2007 by the NCRI Women’s Committee—the clerical regime holds the world record for executing women.
• In this unprecedented wave of executions, the regime has not only broken its own records for executing women but has also increased the total number of executions each month. In 2022, the total number of executions in Iran was about 578; in 2023, 850; in 2024, 1,001; and in just the first 9 months of 2025, around 1,175 people have been executed.

The Clerical Regime: The World’s Leading Executioner of Women

These statistics represent only part of the grim reality. What reveals the depth of the catastrophe is the structural and deliberate role of the regime’s judiciary in organizing this wave of executions, as part of a systematic policy of suppression.

Through deliberate opacity, the clerical regime’s judiciary prevents the disclosure of numerous executions.

• One of the charges frequently brought against women is premeditated murder, most often of a spouse. Many of these women — frequently victims of child marriage or forced marriage — commit murder in self-defense in situations of domestic violence and deadlock. Many of these women have declared that had they had the right to divorce, their situation would never have reached that point.
• Another crime that leads to execution of women is drug trafficking. These women often suffer from extreme poverty. They are either coerced by their husbands or enter this cycle to supply their families’ subsistence. The main perpetrators behind the scenes are mafia-style networks connected to the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who reap large profits. The poor and vulnerable — including unprotected women — are the ones targeted. Moreover, the root cause of the expansion of drug-related crime lies in mass unemployment and the absence of legitimate jobs — the product of the misgovernance and rampant corruption of the clerical leadership, which has plunged the majority of Iranians below the poverty line and ruined their lives.

One example is Marziyeh Esmaeili, aged 39 and mother of a daughter, who was executed on April 15, 2025, in Qazvīn Prison (northwest Iran). Her alleged crime was transporting 600 grams of narcotics in exchange for 10 million tomans (about 100 USD).

It is worth noting that, despite the daily mass executions in Iran — reaching an average of one execution every 5 hours— a strong and expanding movement against the death penalty has emerged across the country. Leading this movement are prisoners who, for 88 consecutive weeks, hold hunger strikes every Tuesday in 52 prisons across the country to protest death sentences. This is a rare development in Iran’s history, and it has gained support from families and various social groups inside Iran and internationally.

List of Women Executed in Iran between July 30 and September 30

1. Jayran Zaheri, Central Prison of Isfahan – September 30
2. Mahtab Bayati, Central Prison of Mashhad – July 30
3. Nahid Jokar, 52 years old – Adelabad Prison of Shiraz – July 31
4. Unknown woman, Khorramabad Prison – August 3
5. Soudabeh Ghasemzadeh, 45 years old, mother of three – Central Prison of Isfahan – August 11
6. Mahsa Akbari, Adelabad Prison of Shiraz – August 20
7. Maliheh Haghighi, 34, Central Prison of Tabriz – August 26
8. Mitra Yasini, Adelabad Prison of Shiraz – August 27
9. Banoo Moghadam, 60 years old, Abhar Prison – August 28
10. Gouhar Taheri, 52 years old, Zanjan Prison – September 2
11. Hadigheh Abadi, mother of three, Qazvin Prison – September 11
12. Zahra Fotouhi, 52 years old, Central Prison of Tabriz – September 17
13. Unidentified woman, Sabzevar Prison – September 17
14. Mahnaz Dehghani, Adelabad Prison of Shiraz – September 24

White Torture Kills: Denial of Medical Care in Detention

Another tactic the clerical regime uses to kill prisoners is white torture or denying access to medical care. In the past month, this policy has resulted in the deaths of several female detainees.

Qarchak Prison, located in Varamin (just southeast of Tehran), is notorious as a symbol of grave abuses against incarcerated women. It suffers from overcrowding, severe shortages of basic necessities (including drinking water), and especially a lack of medical services.

Between September 16 and September 25 alone, at least three female prisoners died in Qarchak due to denial of medical treatment or delays in hospital transfer: Somayeh Rashidi, Jamileh Azizi, and Soudabeh Asadi. Prior to that, one woman in Pardis Prison (Karaj, near Tehran) also died from lack of medical care.

Detailed cases:

• Maryam Shahraki: She was imprisoned on financial charges in Pardis Prison, Karaj. After complaining of severe chest pain and denied hospital transfer, she died on the morning of September 12.
• Soudabeh Asadi: On September 16 she died in Qarchak after days of suffering without hospital transfer. She too was imprisoned on financial charges.
• Jamileh Azizi: A mother of two held on debt-related charges, she was taken to Qarchak’s prison clinic on September 19 with signs of a heart attack; medical staff did not deliver serious treatment and sent her back to her cell, where she died shortly afterward.
• Somayeh Rashidi: A political prisoner with epilepsy, held since May, who needed medical care. On September 25 she died in hospital due to delayed transfer. Prison doctors claimed she was feigning symptoms and gave her psychiatric medications instead of epilepsy treatment.

The names listed are only those cases that were leaked externally. Many more are concealed by the regime or disguised as suicides.
At present, dozens of female political prisoners — many in their 60s or 70s — in Qarchak Prison are denied treatment and are in critical physical condition. This includes Shiva Esmaeili, Fatemeh Ziaii, Marzieh Farsi, Parvin Mir Asan, Zahra Safaei and Maryam Akbari Monfared, all in urgent need of specialized medical attention denied to them.

Urgent Need for Action to Abolish Death Sentences in Iran and Inspect Prisons

Now it is the responsibility of the global community — especially parliaments, human rights defenders, and women’s rights activists — to break the silence over these crimes. Every day of delay means more lives lost to the regime’s noose.

The NCRI Women’s Committee calls on the international community and human rights defenders to take the following immediate, decisive steps:

1. Immediate halt to executions of women and repeal of death sentences for those convicted of murdering a spouse or drug-related charges; also annul all death sentences for political prisoners.
2. Guarantee immediate, full access for female prisoners to medical care and prevent their slow‐death through neglect.
3. Urgent inspections of prisons, particularly Qarchak Prison in Varamin, known as a torture center for women.
4. Pressure the clerical regime to adhere to international human rights standards.