Public executions in Iran

Public executions in Iran regularly occurred during the Qajar dynasty, Pahlavi dynasty and after the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. In 2008 Iran announced the banning of public executions, but since this announcement, some cases have been reported by local media and Western organizations. In 2013, Iran was only one of four countries known to have held public executions.

Under the rule of the Qajar dynasty (1785–1925), forms of public execution included hanging, throwing the condemned from the city walls, tying them to the mouth of a cannon and blowing them apart, suffocating them in a carpet, or re-enacting the crime on the criminal. There was also Sham'i ajjin, which entailed making multiple incisions in the body and then lighting candles in the cuts until the person died. Before being brought onto the public scaffold, the condemned was paraded through the bazaar. By 1890, public hanging replaced more exotic forms of execution. Whereas the failed assassin of Naser al-Din Shah in 1850 died by Sham'i ajjin, and then had his body quartered and blown from cannons, the assassin of Naser al-Din in 1896 was publicly hanged. Judicial reform came with the Persian Constitutional Revolution. In 1909, executions were restricted to hanging and firing squad.

Judicial reform progressed in the late 1920s after Rezā Shāh consolidated Pahlavi rule (1925–1979). Executions were largely removed from the public view, and capital punishment was primarily restricted to murder, high treason, and armed rebellion. One rare public execution during this period was the hanging of the doctor of Tehran's Central Jail shortly after Reza Shah was deposed. The doctor and three others were found guilty of murdering political prisoners.

Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the establishment of the Islamic Republic, public executions became commonplace. The overwhelming majority of public executions were carried out by hanging. Often cranes mounted on trucks served as makeshift gallows. The condemned, and in some cases multiple prisoners, generally stood on a platform before a crowd in a stadium or square. The prisoner was lifted high off the ground by crane, with the rope around their neck, leading to a slower death by strangulation. In other instances, the condemned was placed standing on a stool, which was then abruptly removed, leaving the individual to suffocate to death but barely dangling off the ground. According to a 1990 Amnesty International report, "Flogging prior to execution is relatively common."

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