RASC News Agency: Human rights watchdogs have reported the execution of three Afghanistani nationals in the central prison of Mashhad, Iran, on charges related to narcotics. According to Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the executions took place on Wednesday, June 26, in what rights advocates are calling yet another troubling instance of Iran’s opaque and punitive judicial system targeting vulnerable foreign detainees. The Friday statement issued by Hengaw identified two of the executed individuals by their first names Pashah and Ahmad while the third individual’s identity remains unknown. All three were reportedly Afghanistani citizens.
As of now, Iranian state media and official government sources have neither confirmed the executions nor provided any public commentary on the matter a pattern of silence that has come to typify Tehran’s handling of cases involving foreign nationals, particularly Afghanistani migrants. International human rights organizations have repeatedly expressed alarm over the escalating number of executions in Iran, particularly those involving Afghanistani prisoners. The executions have intensified in both frequency and secrecy since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, with critics accusing Tehran of leveraging capital punishment as a tool for internal control while neglecting its international legal obligations.
According to various rights groups, more than 80 Afghanistani prisoners were executed in Iran over the past year alone many of them convicted under Iran’s harsh and often non-transparent anti-drug laws. Legal experts and activists argue that Afghanistani detainees are disproportionately represented on death row, frequently denied access to independent legal counsel, and tried in proceedings lacking even the most basic due process standards. Human rights defenders have condemned what they describe as a two-tiered justice system in Iran one that exposes foreign nationals, particularly impoverished and undocumented Afghanistani migrants, to accelerated and unreviewable death sentences. Reports have also noted the absence of consular representation, language barriers in legal defense, and the inability of families to secure adequate legal recourse for their loved ones.
Critics further warn that the executions come amid rising xenophobia and tightening immigration policies in Iran, where hundreds of thousands of Afghanistani refugees continue to live in precarious legal and economic conditions. With deportations and mass detentions on the rise, the Iranian government is increasingly being scrutinized for treating Afghanistani migrants not as human beings, but as expendable political leverage. While the Taliban regime in Kabul has remained largely silent on the plight of Afghanistani prisoners abroad, Afghanistani civil society groups and international human rights organizations are calling for urgent diplomatic pressure and UN intervention to monitor Iran’s treatment of foreign detainees and halt the use of capital punishment in cases marred by judicial ambiguity.
As families grieve in silence and justice remains elusive, the executions serve as a grim reminder of the growing vulnerabilities facing Afghanistani migrants caught between an oppressive regime at home and a punitive legal system across the border.
