United Nations investigator, Ahmed Shaheed, has told officials in New York that executions in Iran have been rising at "an exponential rate" since 2005.
In a report to the General Assembly circulated this week, Mr Shaheed stated that the number of executions in the country could top 1,000 this year, as state authorities crack down on drug offenders.
According to the report, which was circulated on Tuesday, Iran executes more individuals per capita than any other country in the world.
Mr Shaheed, who is the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, says that the majority of executions violate international laws that ban the use of capital punishment for non-violent offenses and for juvenile. He went on to urge Iran to impose a suspension of the death penalty for all but the "most serious crimes.”
The report, which can be read in full here, also found that 69 percent of executions during the first half of 2015 were seemingly for drug-related offenses.
Second only to China as the nation that kills the most of its citizens, Iran is said to have executed almost 700 people so far this year almost three times the figure acknowledged by the authorities.
The report details how Iranian authorities have stated that 80 percent of people currently on death row — a number that Amnesty said equates to “several thousand” — are there due to drug-related offenses.
Iranian authorities have historically only acknowledged a small proportion of their overall executions, the rights group added.
Tehran acknowledged 289 of 743 total executions in 2014, the report said.
The Independent has approached Amnesty International for a comment.
