Since February 1979, agents and proxies of the Islamic Republic of Iran have kidnapped, disappeared, and extrajudicially executed (both inside and outside Iran) a significant number of individuals whose activities and influence they deemed undesirable. The involvement of Iran’s authorities, diplomats and security forces in ordering, planning, and carrying out these crimes has been laid bare, and sometimes acknowledged by Iranian officials, in multiple cases. In the absence of transparency, systematic official investigations and independent field research, the actual number of the victims of these crimes – numbering at least 452 outside Iran alone, remains unknown.

In Iran, perpetrators have benefited from impunity and calls for truth and justice have often been punished. The states on whose territory these crimes were committed have too often failed their duty to protect victims’ right to life and justice. They have denied victims and the public access to relevant and accurate information, a prerequisite for ensuring meaningful accountability and essential to the rule of law and non-repetition. In many cases, invoking national security or prioritizing political and economic interests, host countries have avoided making arrests, allowed arrested suspects - in particular state agents - to leave, granted early releases to those convicted for these crimes, or depoliticized the killings by prosecuting them as ordinary crimes. These policies have strengthened a culture of impunity and opened the way to the repetition of these crimes and made Iran’s sinister warnings more effective in silencing dissent.

Through this map, Abdorrahman Boroumand Center (ABC) for Human Rights in Iran aims to shed light on the extrajudicial killings attributed to Iran or its proxies, in support of victims’ and society’s right to the truth and accountability. The visualized data, though representing only a portion of actual cases, allows a better understanding of the killings’ frequency, scope, geographical extent, and of the ensuing judicial process, if any. The map also aims to provide a better understanding of the nature and scope of failed assassination and kidnapping attempts as well as death threats that are transmitted to targeted individuals directly or through others, digitally, and by phone and social media among other means. These underreported and often overlooked warnings, which often precede physical eliminations inside and outside Iran, have a significant and negative impact on the lives of the individuals targeted, their family members and the community at large. They also undermine the exercise of fundamental rights such as the right to freedom of speech, association, religion, and assembly with no consequences for their perpetrators.

To read about our methodology, please click here.