Afghan Migrant Workers at Imminent Risk of Execution
May 23, 2025 – Human-rights groups warn that two Afghan migrant workers in Iran, Mohammad Ramez Rashidi and Naeim Hashem Ghotali, are at imminent risk of public execution in the southern city of Shiraz. On 23 May, the Fars Province prosecutor confirmed that death sentences against the men had been upheld. Activists say preparations for their execution are underway.
The two Afghans were tried in connection with the October 2022 attack on Shiraz’s Shah Cheragh shrine, an assault that killed at least 13 people. According to state media, the Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack. Despite this, Rashidi and Ghotali, along with two other Afghan nationals, Hamid Ala Kaboli and Mostafa Jan Amani, were prosecuted and sentenced to death.
Due-Process Violations
Rights monitors, including the volunteer collective 1500Tasvir, report that both men were denied fair-trial guarantees:
proceedings held largely behind closed doors;
no access to independent counsel;
alleged forced confessions presented as primary evidence.
As of 28 May, 1500Tasvir indicated the two may have been moved to solitary confinement, a step often preceding execution in Iranian prisons.
Broader Pattern of Targeting Afghan Nationals
Afghan migrants constitute the largest group of non-Iranians on death row in the Islamic Republic. According to annual reports by Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) and Amnesty International, Afghans, many of whom cross the border to work as low-wage labourers, are consistently overrepresented among those executed. In some provinces bordering Afghanistan, rights groups estimate that one in every three executions involves an Afghan national, often for nonviolent drug-related offences.
Multiple investigations have documented systemic violations of due process in these cases. Trials are frequently held in Revolutionary Courts behind closed doors. Defendants are denied independent counsel, and in many instances, they cannot communicate in Farsi, the language of the court. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran has repeatedly raised concerns that Afghan defendants are especially vulnerable to coerced confessions and that families are rarely informed in advance of executions. This practice violates international standards under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party.
This discriminatory pattern is unfolding alongside a wider campaign of mass deportations and xenophobic rhetoric by Iranian officials, which has intensified since the 2022 to 2023 regional security crises. Humanitarian agencies, including the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UNICEF, have warned that these policies expose Afghan refugees and migrant workers to arbitrary detention, collective punishment, and life-threatening conditions at the border.
The impending executions of Mohammad Ramez Rashidi and Naeim Hashem Ghotali, therefore, represent more than isolated miscarriages of justice. They epitomize a structural pattern of state violence in which Afghan nationals are used as scapegoats during periods of domestic unrest and are denied the protections of both Iranian law and international human rights norms.
