Ten Drug Smugglers Executed in Hormozgan

Ten former drug smugglers on death row in Iran were executed at 6am on the morning of August 17, 2015 in Hormozgan province in the south of the country.

Six of those convicted were put to death at the central prison in Bandar Abbas and the remaining four at Minab prison.

“When they were arrested, they had been carrying over 398 kilos worth of drugs; 70 kilos of heroin, 200 kilos of opium, 105 kilos of crack, four kilos of hash and 19 kilos of morphine,” Khaleej-e Fars news agency reported. “They were attempting to distribute the drugs across different parts of Hormozgan province.”

The Revolutionary Courts in Bandar Abbas and Minab issued the death sentences, although all courts across Iran take a hard line against drug crime offenders.

“The above executions were in line with the judiciary’s promise to crack down on drug smugglers so that we’re able to uphold social security as much as possible,” the Journalist’s Club told Khaleej-e Fars.

With over six million drug addicts in the country, drug trafficking is estimated to bring in about three billion dollars a year, according to official statistics. Other commodities such as cigarettes, cellphones, alcoholic beverages, cosmetics, satellite receivers and medicines like performance-enhancing drugs are also smuggled into Iran on a vast scale.

This is why in June 2015, sport ministry officials announced they were closing over 100 sports centers in Mashhad as part of an effort to stamp out the sale of illegal performance enhancement drugs.

Across the whole of Iran, the number of drug addicts is high, although it varies from region to region. In Gorgan province, there was a staggering 1.33 million drug addicts in 2014, according to a speech by Alireza Jazini, the deputy secretary General of Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters on February 18, 2015.

He also told journalists at the office of the governor-general in Golestan province’s capital city that authorities arrested more than 300,000 people in the province in the first 10 months of 2014, 66,000 of which were drug-related arrests. In that same period, authorities seized 468 tons of narcotics. Other provinces see an equally disturbing trend.

It would seem that despite the government’s continued use of harsh sentencing on drug smugglers, dealers and addicts alike, this illicit industry continues to be a burden both to the authorities and the people it affects in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Read the original article in Persian

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