Iran executed more than 2,200 people in 2025: record number of executions in 91 cities under Khamenei's regime

In response to the alarming increase in executions in Iran during 2025, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), Maryam Rajavi, issued a statement denouncing the repressive policies of the Khamenei regime.

Rajavi described these mass and arbitrary executions as organised crime and a direct attack on the human rights of the Iranian people.

Maryam Rajavi:

Collective and arbitrary executions are a clear case of organised crime and a crime against humanity. They are also a desperate effort by a regime that fears an angry people and an explosive society. The regime has resorted to hanging in an attempt to survive.

The uprising of angry merchants and citizens in Tehran in late 2025 proved that resorting to mass executions to prevent the uprising is a failed policy. The regime is weaker and more fragile than ever, and has reached a total impasse.

Religious fascism in Iran has made 2025 one of the darkest years in the country's contemporary history, with 2,201 prisoners executed. This is the highest number of executions in the 37 years of the criminal regime of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK) has verified and recorded the names and places of execution of those killed and has made this information public through statements issued by the Secretariat of the NCRI throughout the year. A comparison of the execution figures for the last five years with those for the last 12 months reveals that as the regime has weakened and crises have intensified, it has increasingly resorted to executions to create an atmosphere of terror and prevent popular uprisings.

1. The number of executions in 2025 was approximately 120% higher than in 2024 (1,006 executions), 160% higher than in 2023 (853 executions), and 280% higher than in 2022 (582 executions).
2. The pace of executions accelerated at an unprecedented rate in the second half of 2025. The number of executions in the last six months of the year was more than double that in the first six months. So far, a total of 376 executions have been recorded in December 2025, the highest number in 37 years.
3. Khamenei's execution machinery hanged victims in 97 cities in 31 provinces in 2025, up from 77 cities the previous year. This expansion is intended to spread an atmosphere of terror to more parts of the country. Meanwhile, it is much more difficult to record executions in remote prisons and small towns, meaning that many victims and execution locations could not be identified.
4. Among those executed were at least 64 women, almost double the previous year (34 women were executed in 2024). Six juvenile offenders were also executed in 2025.
5. This year, thirteen victims were hanged in public with unimaginable cruelty, almost triple the number in the previous year (five public executions).

1. The victims spanned all age groups, from 18 to 71 years old. The average age of the 881 people whose age is known is 36 years old.
2. The number of death sentences handed down against political prisoners for their alleged membership of the PMOI increased significantly in 2025. Currently, 18 political prisoners who were sentenced to death on this charge in 2025, or whose sentences were confirmed by the regime's Supreme Court this year, are awaiting execution. They range in age from 22 to 68.
3. The current show trial in absentia of 104 members and leaders of the Resistance has paved the way for more executions and terrorist acts against PMOI members and supporters in Iran and abroad. This irregular court has also ruled that participating in PMOI demonstrations abroad constitutes ‘baghy’ (armed rebellion), a crime punishable by death.
4. In 2025, the movement against executions in Iran grew significantly. As part of the ‘No to executions on Tuesdays’ campaign, prisoners in 55 prisons have been on hunger strike every Tuesday. The campaign began on 29 January 2024 in Qezel Hesar prison and has now passed its 101st week.

Ms Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, described this increase in mass, collective and arbitrary executions as organised crime and a crime against humanity. She called it a desperate effort by a regime beset by major domestic and international crises that, fearing an uprising, has resorted to executions to survive and is waging an all-out war against the Iranian people.

The enraged population is fed up with the regime's oppression, discrimination and plunder and is demanding its overthrow.

Ms Rajavi added that the uprising of angry merchants and citizens in Tehran and other cities late this year, amid the wave of executions, demonstrated once again the failure of the policy of resorting to mass executions to prevent an explosion of popular anger. The ruling religious dictatorship in Iran is weaker and more fragile than ever, and has reached a complete impasse. She added that the ‘godfather of executions and terror in the 21st century’ must be ostracised by the international community.

Any deal or negotiation with this regime must be conditional on it ending executions, torture and terrorism. Its leaders must also be brought to justice for crimes against humanity and genocide over the past 46 years.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

31 December 2025