Iran's 2025 execution surge reaches new high as UN condemns, MEK reports

The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a dissident group, says Iran executed 2,013 people from Jan. 1 to Dec. 15, 2025, under President Masoud Pezeshkian, according to MEK documents provided to Fox News Digital. The group’s tally, which they say far exceeds the United Nations’ count for 2024, comes as the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning Iran's execution spree “in the strongest terms.”

MEK's figures, based on documents circulating among dissidents, mark a sharp rise in state killings as Iran faces a free-falling currency, widespread protests, internal power struggles, and revived sanctions that have tightened the regime's coffers. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights counted 975 executions in 2024 — the highest total since 2015 — and the MEK says its 2024 tally was 1,001, illustrating a sustained pattern that activists say has intensified this year. The MEK asserts the 2025 total represents the highest level of executions they have recorded since the 1980s.

A State Department spokesperson condemned Iran's human rights abuses, telling Fox News Digital that, "We strongly condemn the Iranian regime’s use of execution as a tool of political repression. For decades, the regime has subjected Iranians to torture, forced confessions, and sham trials, resulting in unlawful executions. Today, innocent civilians are being used as scapegoats for the regime’s military and economic failures." The spokesperson added that the Trump Administration’s policy of maximum pressure was restored, stressing sanctions on Iran’s shadow fleet and other measures intended to deplete the regime’s coffers.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, the senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran Program, told Fox News Digital that Washington has more steps to take and criticized a perceived lag behind other Western partners. He noted Canada’s Dec. sanctions on individuals after a protest in Mashhad and warned that the United States should act more decisively, arguing that a broader U.S. effort would support Iranians who oppose the regime. Taleblu described Iran as responsive to external pressures and said the regime’s attempts at social leniency, including hijab policy changes, are designed to preserve its oligarchic grip in a post-Khamenei Iran. "The imperative for Washington to support Iranian protesters... stands," he said.

The MEK has urged U.S. policymakers to recognize the Iranian people’s right to resist and to overthrow the regime, which they contend is the only path to ending Iran’s theocracy. On Dec. 10, the European Parliament marked International Human Rights Day by calling for action against Iran over its execution campaign. Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told lawmakers that Iran is attempting to crush dissent and urged that relations with the regime be conditioned on halting executions, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ministry of Intelligence placed on the terrorist list.

Among those sentenced to death is Zahra Tabari, a 67-year-old engineer and mother who MEK says received her sentence after a sham 10-minute trial without her chosen legal representation. Tabari was arrested after holding a banner reading "Woman, Resistance, Freedom." The MEK says Tabari’s case illustrates what it describes as expedited, untransparent trials used to justify executions amid a broader crackdown. The group says the number of executions in Iran has doubled since October, a pace the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights described as an “unprecedented execution spree,” with as many as nine prisoners dying each day at one point.

In the wake of the rising death toll, death row prisoners staged hunger strikes and Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not offer comment on the MEK report. Observers caution that precise tallies from dissident groups and state actors differ, but agree that the trend appears unmistakable: executions appear to be rising sharply as Iran confronts economic strain, unrest, and international pressure.

As the year progresses, international actors have pressed for more concrete action. Proponents of stronger sanctions and support for dissenting voices argue that only sustained political and economic pressure can push Iran toward treating its citizens as rights-holders rather than targets of the state. The MEK’s published documents and the UN’s condemnation together underscore a widening gap between Tehran’s internal narrative and the international community’s human rights concerns. The Islamic Republic has not publicly commented on the MEK report at this time.

In a broader context, rights groups have cautioned that the escalation in executions mirrors a broader crackdown in a year marked by protests and political fragility. Analysts say the regime faces a combination of domestic and international pressures, including currency devaluation, sanctions, and a challenging economy, that may influence its approach to dissent and punishment. While the United Nations and Western governments push for accountability, Tehran maintains that its legal system operates independently of foreign interference. The coming months could test whether international pressure yields any meaningful constraints on Iran’s use of the death penalty as a policy tool.