Credit: Shabnam Madadzadeh
On Friday 10 October 2025, a rally was held in Place Hamilius in Luxembourg City to protest against the ongoing wave of executions in Iran; the protest marked World Day Against the Death Penalty and was organised by Amnesty International Luxembourg and ACAT, together with members of the Association for Human Rights and Democracy in Iran – Luxembourg, and Iranian human rights activists.
Participants held placards warning about the rate of executions in Iran. Currently, there are understood to be at least 50 political prisoners, including four women, on death row in Iran, and that seventeen political prisoners have been sentenced to death for alleged support of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the democratic alternative to the clerical regime.
In the first nine months of 2025, more than 1,200 people are understood to have been executed, including at least 200 prisoners in September alone, the highest monthly figure in the past 30 years.
Amnesty International has called for urgent international action against this horrifying situation. On 10 October, Amnesty International Luxembourg sent a letter to Luxembourg's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Xavier Bettel, urging immediate diplomatic measures to stop executions in Iran.
The protestors called for the highest levels of diplomatic engagement, arguing that ending executions in Iran requires decisive political action, not merely issuing statements of concern. They demanded an immediate halt to all executions in Iran, especially the executions of political prisoners facing imminent execution; prosecution of those responsible for past and present crimes, including the 1988 massacre; sanctions on those responsible for human rights abuses, including prison authorities, judges and executioners; and urgent action by the UN Special Rapporteur, the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, the High Commissioner for Human Rights and all international human rights bodies to prevent another massacre in Iran.
