Iranian authorities have hanged another 30 prisoners at Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad on drug-related charges, says the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
The campaign cites “local knowledgeable sources” saying 12 prisoners were executed on Wednesday June 29 and another 18 were hanged on the following Sunday.
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran say the executions once again were carried out in secret and en masse, with no prior notification of families and attorneys and no official announcement from the judiciary.
The report indicates that on June 29, the judiciary announced the execution of one convicted murderer but made no reference to the execution of 12 prisoners on drug charges.
On June 15 another 25 prisoners were reportedly executed en masse at Vakilabad Prison without any official announcement
The campaign maintains that hundreds of prisoners have been executed in secret at Vakilabad Prison over the past two years, but Mashhad’s prosecutor general has responded by saying the media has exaggerated the scale of executions at Vakilabad. Mahmoud Zoghi has said that Mashhad has a high rate of drug crime because of its proximity to the Afghanistan border. This, according to the prosecutor, is what drives up the execution rate in the Khorasan Razavi Province compared to other regions of Iran.
Reports of mass executions in Vakilabad Prison have caused grave concern for human rights groups, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made direct reference to them in March in his report on human rights violations in Iran.
