Hossein Havasizadeh and Reza Ghorbani at Risk of Execution in Karaj

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two men were transferred to solitary confinement on 27 January in preparation for their executions in Ghezelhesar Prison in Karaj. Their identities have been established as Hossein Havasizadeh and Reza Ghorbani who were both sentenced to death for drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court.

Hossein Havasizadeh’s brother, Moslem Havasizadeh was executed in the same prison on 18 July 2023.

Iran Human Rights has recorded a noteworthy number of cases where multiple members of the same family have been executed for drug-related charges. In the last case, Naghi Zayerfar was executed on 2 January 2024, six months after his brother Bahman Zayerfar.

Hossein Havasizadeh and Reza Ghorbani are scheduled to be executed in the coming days.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year for the past three years. At least 305 people were executed for drug-related charges between 1 January-10 October 2023, a 69% increase compared to the same period in 2022, and the number of drug-related executions in 2023 were close to 20 times higher than 2020.

The number of drug executions dramatically dropped in 2018 following a 2017 Amendment to the Anti-Narcotics Laws. Consequently, drug executions ranged between 24-30 per annum between 2018-2020. The Amendment was reversed in practice in 2021 when executions increased ten-fold to 126 in 2021 and doubled again in 2022 with 256 drug-related executions. On 13 September 2023, IHRNGO reported a 94% rise in the number of drug-related executions in the year following the start of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in September 2022.