Dowlat Nowrouzi: Execution rate rising in Iran under Rouhani

NCRI - Dowlat Nowrouzi, the representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in the United Kingdom, says the rate of executions in Iran are rising during Hassan Rouhani's presidency.

In an interview with ncr-iran.org on Tuesday, Ms. Nowrouzi said that recent trips by European officials to Iran have not led to an improvement of the human rights situation by the mullahs' regime.

Earlier this month while the head of European Union diplomacy Ms. Federica Mogherini visited Tehran, 10 people, including two women, were executed, Ms. Nowrouzi pointed out.

"The recent trips not only did not help the terrible human rights situation in Iran; they only aggravated it,” she said.

She added that according to the United Nations the execution rate in Iran hit a record last year.

“In reality and based on the reports by the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran only last year 966 people had been executed in Iran, while we know that the real figure is much higher,” Ms. Nowrouzi said.

“In the aftermath of the nuclear deal the human rights situation has not improved for the better; rather, it is getting much worse.”

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April 13 that the increasing trend of executions “aimed at intensifying the climate of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society, especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval regime.”

Ms. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Tehran on April 16 along with seven EU commissioners for discussions with the regime’s officials on trade and other areas of cooperation.

Her trip was strongly criticized by Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the NCRI who said: “This trip which takes place in the midst of mass executions, brutal human rights violations and the regime's unbridled warmongering in the region tramples on the values upon which the EU has been founded and which Ms. Mogherini should be defending and propagating.”

Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the 2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to at least 743 the year before."

"Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded" in the Middle East and North Africa, the human rights group said.

There have been more than 2,300 executions during Hassan Rouhani’s tenure as President. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran in March announced that the number of executions in Iran in 2015 was greater than any year in the last 25 years. Rouhani has explicitly endorsed the executions as examples of “God’s commandments” and “laws of the parliament that belong to the people.”