Iran executed a woman in Qazin Central Prison on 20 January, Norway-based Iran Human Rights has reported.
News of the execution has come to light almost a month after the sentence was carried out. The woman, Hajar Atabaki (41) was hanged “in silence”, meaning the execution was not reported in the domestic media or by the country’s officials.
A recent 2024 report by Human Rights Watch on global trends in executions stated that Iran remains one of the world’s top practitioners of the death penalty, behind only China. Atabaki is the second woman known to have been executed in Iran this year.
Atabaki was executed for a drug-related offence. Iran Human Rights, in a comprehensive 2021 report on women and the death penalty, said that drug-related executions in Iran were dominated by underlying poverty issues.
“When reported, women [under the death sentence] are often portrayed as evil mothers, femmes fatales or conniving schemers. The reality however is layered with legislative and social discrimination, inequality and taboos,” the watchdog noted.
In December, a victim of child marriage and domestic abuse was executed for the murder of her husband, despite pleas from the international community for clemency.