Iran hangs five men convicted of gang rape in northwest
Iranian judicial website says men implicated in other crimes; Amnesty International says use of death penalty in Islamic Republic rapidly rising in 2023
Illustrative: A prisoner being held in an Iranian prison. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
TEHRAN — Iran executed five men by hanging on Wednesday after convicting them of gang raping a woman in the northwest of the country last year, the judiciary said.
The “five men who had kidnapped and raped a woman in the city of Marand in May 2022 were executed today,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website announced.
The men, who were arrested four days after the gang rape in East Azerbaijan province, were implicated in other crimes, Mizan said without elaborating.
Last month, Iran executed three men who were convicted of raping women they had anaesthetized after luring them to a fake cosmetic surgery clinic.
They were found guilty of conspiring in multiple cases of sexual assault in the southern province of Hormozgan in late 2021, Mizan reported at the time.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
Human rights group Amnesty International says Iran executes more people than any other country except China and hanged at least 582 people last year, the highest number since 2015.
A demonstrator holds up a sign reading ‘Stop Executions in Iran’ as Iranian opposition protesters carry their national flags in Paris during a rally to protest against the visit of the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, in France, January 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Zacharie Scheurer)
Amnesty says authorities in Iran have “significantly increased the number of overall executions for all crimes, with at least 282 people executed in total so far in 2023.”
It says the figure is nearly double the number of executions that were recorded at the beginning of June last year.
Advertisement
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
