Executions in Iran Undergo ‘Unprecedented Spike’, Over 700 Have Been Executed Since Beginning of 2015

People gather opposite Downing Street during a protest against the execution of a young woman in Iran, in October of last year. Amnesty International says that Iran has undergone an “unprecedented spike” in executions in recent months. (PHOTO CREDIT: Graham Mitchell/Barcroft Media/Landov)

Amnesty International has identified what it says is an “unprecedented spike” in executions in Iran in recent months, writing in a new report that at least 743 people may have been put to death in 2014 and nearly 700 more since the beginning of the year.

“Iran’s staggering execution toll for the first half of this year paints a sinister picture of the machinery of the state carrying out premeditated, judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale,” Said Boumedouha, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program, was quoted in the report as saying.

“If Iran’s authorities maintain this horrifying execution rate we are likely to see more than 1,000 state-sanctioned deaths by the year’s end,” Boumedouha said.

Click here to read more.

SOURCE: NPR, Scott Neuman