IRAN sent five men to the gallows today after convicting them of raping a woman last year, the country’s judiciary said.

The “five men who had kidnapped and raped a woman in the city of Marand in May 2022 were executed today”, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website announced.

The men, who were arrested four days after the gang rape in East Azerbaijan province, were implicated in other crimes, Mizan said without elaborating.

Last month, Iran executed three men who were convicted of raping women they had anaesthetised after luring them to a fake cosmetic surgery clinic.

They were found guilty of conspiring in multiple cases of sexual assault in Hormozgan province in late 2021, Mizan reported.

Human rights group Amnesty International said Iran executes more people than any other country except China, and hanged at least 582 people last year, the highest number since 2015.

Amnesty International said Iran authorities have “significantly increased the number of overall executions for all crimes, with at least 282 people executed in total so far in 2023”.

It said the figure is nearly double the number of executions recorded in early June last year. – AFP, August 9, 2023.