On the World Day Against the Death Penalty, HRAI has published its annual report, in efforts to sensitize the public about the situation of the death penalty in Iran.

Between October 10, 2019, and October 8, 2020, the death penalty and executions have been the focus of 264 HRANA reports. Over this time period, the Iranian authorities issued the death penalty sentence to 96 individuals and have already carried out 256 executions including 2 public executions. Females account for only 15 of the 256 HRANA-confirmed execution victims this year. . In addition, 2 juvenile offenders, under the age of 18 when they allegedly committed the crime they were charged with, were executed.

This report examines the extent to which states sanction the killing of sexual minorities.

Many readers will take for granted the acceptability of consensual sexual activity between persons of the same sex, and the total inappropriateness of the state interfering with—let alone prohibiting—such behavior. It may come as a surprise, then, that around the world, numerous states are complicit in the most extreme response to sexual diversity: homicide.

This report examines the extent to which states sanction the killing of sexual minorities. We look beyond those countries that impose the death penalty for same-sex intimacy to the far greater number of countries in which state actors commission, condone, endorse and enable such killings. We argue that the state-sanctioned killing of sexual minorities is often perpetrated well beyond the boundaries of the law, and even in countries that do not criminalise such conduct.