Iran’s clerical regime closed out 2025 with what an Iranian opposition coalition described as an unprecedented surge of state killings — as the group’s president-elect warned the mass hangings amount to “a crime against humanity” and a desperate bid for “survival” by a system that fears an “explosive society.”
The year-end tally, published on Wednesday, December 31, by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) — an Iranian opposition group — put the number at more than 2,200 executions nationwide in 2025, including 376 hangings in December alone, which it said capped the bloodiest year recorded under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s 37-year rule.
NCRI president-elect Maryam Rajavi said the mass, collective, and arbitrary executions constitute organized crime and a crime against humanity, describing them as a desperate effort by a regime that fears an enraged population and an explosive society.
The NCRI said executions in 2025 were more than double the prior year, asserting the regime carried out roughly 120 percent more executions than in 2024 (1,006), 160 percent more than in 2023 (853), and about 280 percent more than in 2022 (582).
The opposition coalition described 2025 as one of the darkest years in Iran’s contemporary history — and the bloodiest year it has recorded under Khamenei — arguing the regime has increasingly turned to the gallows as its internal crises deepen.
According to the report, the pace of executions accelerated sharply in the second half of the year, with killings over the final six months running more than double those in the first half, culminating in December’s unprecedented surge.
The NCRI said executions were carried out across 97 cities in 31 provinces, up from 77 cities the previous year, framing the geographic expansion as an effort to spread an atmosphere of terror nationwide. It also warned that documenting executions in remote prisons and smaller towns remains difficult, meaning additional cases may not have been captured.
Among those executed were at least 64 women, nearly double last year’s figure, as well as six juvenile offenders, the group said.
The report also documented 13 public executions in 2025 — nearly three times the number recorded the previous year — describing the practice as a deliberate display of intimidation.
Victims spanned all age groups, from 18-year-old youths to 71-year-old individuals, with the average age of the 881 executed prisoners whose ages were known standing at 36, according to the NCRI.
The opposition group said death sentences against political prisoners accused of membership in the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) increased significantly in 2025, warning that 18 such prisoners, between 22 and 68 years old, are currently awaiting execution after receiving death sentences this year or having their verdicts upheld by the regime’s Supreme Court.
It also pointed to what it described as a sham trial in absentia involving 104 members and officials of the Resistance, which it said is paving the way for further executions and terrorist acts, including by labeling participation in PMOI demonstrations abroad as “baghy” — armed rebellion — a charge punishable by death.
At the same time, the NCRI said the anti-execution movement inside Iran expanded “unprecedentedly” in 2025, citing the “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign in which prisoners in 55 prisons have staged weekly hunger strikes — a campaign that passed its 101st week on Tuesday.
The group’s president-elect said the regime’s wave of collective and arbitrary executions reflects organized state criminality, arguing Tehran has turned to mass hangings as it confronts major domestic and international crises and fears renewed uprising.
She added that the uprising of merchants and angry citizens in Tehran and other cities in the final days of the year demonstrated the failure of mass executions to deter revolt, declaring the ruling religious dictatorship “weaker and more fragile than ever” and “at a complete impasse,” according to the NCRI.
A separate annual report citing the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) documented at least 1,922 executions through December 20, a cutoff that excludes the final 11 days of the year — a period the NCRI says saw a sharp escalation, with December alone accounting for 376 executions.
The year-end execution figures landed as Iran entered a fourth consecutive day of nationwide unrest, with merchant strikes, student demonstrations, and street clashes spreading beyond Tehran amid the collapsing rial and soaring inflation — protests that opposition groups say underscore the regime’s deepening internal crisis.
President Donald Trump, meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, also sharpened his warning to Tehran, saying the United States would “knock the hell out of” Iran if it rebuilds its missile or nuclear capabilities — while urging the regime to negotiate.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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