Iran’s judiciary-affiliated news agency Mizan reported on Saturday, October 3, that Saman Mohammadi Khiyareh, a Kurdish political prisoner from Sanandaj, was executed.
Mohammadi Khiyareh was arrested in February 2010 and, months later, sentenced to death on charges of moharebeh (enmity against God) by Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Abolqasem Salavati.
The death sentence was initially overturned by Branch 41 of Iran’s Supreme Court, and in a retrial, Mohammadi Khiyareh was instead sentenced to 15 years in prison for “membership in opposition groups.”
However, under pressure from security agencies, this ruling was once again quashed, and following yet another trial on the same charges, he was again sentenced to death.
On October 2, the Iran Human Rights Organization reported that at least 171 executions had taken place in Iran during September 2025, with “less than six percent” (10 cases) officially announced in state media.
According to the group, 90 individuals (53 percent) were executed on drug-related charges and 71 (46 percent) for murder. Additionally, two people were executed on charges of “espionage for Israel” under efsad fel-arz (spreading corruption on earth) and moharebeh (enmity against God), and one person was hanged for moharebeh in connection with the 2022 protests.
Among those executed in September were five women, 14 Baluch citizens, 18 Kurds, four Arabs, and nine Afghan nationals (including one woman).
The organization warned that the current pace of executions in Iran is “unprecedented” in the past three decades, noting that in the first nine months of 2025 alone, at least 1,042 executions have been recorded—more than double the 516 executions documented during the same period in the previous year.
Separately, Kurdish human rights groups reported that the number of executions in September reached at least 187, compared to 78 in the same month last year—a 140 percent increase and the highest monthly total in two decades.
The identities of 181 individuals have been independently verified, while six more are under review. According to these reports, only eight cases (about four percent) were announced in official Iranian sources, while at least 14 executions were carried out “secretly, without informing families and without granting a final visit.”
