GENEVA: Iran has executed at least 40 people, including 18 protesters, on “national security grounds” since the start of 2026, the United Nations said Monday.
UN rights chief Volker Turk said he felt “deeply for the people in Iran, caught between war and cruel repression.”
Since the start of the year, the Iranian authorities “have executed at least 40 people on national security grounds... including 18 protesters,” he told the UN Human Rights Council.
Iran executes more people annually than any other nation besides China, according to rights groups.
Turk lamented that Tehran had ramped up repression since a deadly crackdown on protests in January, on top of the Middle East war, sparked in February by US and Israeli attacks on Iran.
