Death Penalty Research Unit (DPRU) Research Papers
DPRU Research Paper No. 1
February 2022
The Politics of Capital Punishment for Foreign Nationals in
Iran
Brian Egan* and Jocelyn Hutton†
INTRODUCTION
instructed not to report some of them,2 and
because many executions occur in regional prisons
This paper seeks to map the political economy
of capital punishment for foreign nationals in the
Islamic Republic of Iran. The specific nationalities
which are represented on death row will be
in remote provinces, full information becomes even
more difficult to collect. Even when they are
officially announced, there is a lack of systematic,
government compiled annual statistics.3
discussed, as well as which offences they are
It is left to NGOs to try pierce this veil of
convicted of. It will also look at the specific
secrecy: “these organisations rely on a wide array of
vulnerabilities that this group faces, and the
sources to corroborate their numbers, including
particular plight of dual nationals and how this
official government announcements, unnamed
relatively small cohort has an instrumental political
government sources, sources inside the prisons
function for Iran.
(including prisoners), lawyers, family members,
There are substantive transparency issues
regarding Iran’s use of capital punishment. There
are a large number of ‘secret executions’ that go
unannounced by the regime.1 Newspapers can be
*
local newspapers, and other information.”4 It has led
many NGOs to note that the real figure of
executions in Iran could be even higher than their
calculations. Furthermore, it is likely that the
compounded vulnerability faced by foreign or dual
MSc Criminology and Criminal Justice Graduate, University of Oxford; Research Intern 2020-21, Death Penalty Research Unit,
University of Oxford.
†
ESRC Research Officer, Death Penalty Research Unit, University of Oxford.