Execution of Woman in Vakilabad Prison

Source: Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)

On September 4, 2023, Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad witnessed the execution of a female inmate who had been convicted of murder.

Identified by HRANA as Mahboobeh Roshandel, she was just 27 years old and a mother to a six-year-old child.

Roshandel was found guilty of killing her mother-in-law.

A source close to Roshandel’s family shared with HRANA that during her years of incarceration, her own family did not allow her to see her child, resulting in severe depression. The source also disclosed, “Recently, the victim’s family had initially expressed their intention to pardon Roshandel, but regrettably, they later reconsidered and changed their decision.”

At the time of writing, no official sources or domestic media outlets within the country have reported on this execution.

In 2022, the Department of Statistics and Publication of Human Rights Activists in Iran registered 457 reports related to the death penalty. This included 92 death sentences, including the conviction of 6 people to public execution, and 565 execution sentences were carried out, 2 of which have been carried out in public. Based on the announced identifications of some of the executed individuals, 501 were male, and 11 were female. In addition, five juvenile offenders were executed in 2022, meaning they were under the age of 18 at the time they committed the crime.