Iran hangs five men convicted of gang rape

Iran executed five men by hanging on Wednesday after convicting them of gang raping a woman in the northwest of the country last year, the judiciary said.

The "five men who had kidnapped and raped a woman in the city of Marand in May 2022 were executed today [Wednesday]," 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 the southern province of Hormozgan in late 2021, Mizan reported at the time.

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

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

It says the figure is nearly double the number of executions that were recorded at the beginning of June last year.