The spasm of hangings undermines the image of President Hassan Rouhani as the “moderate” reformer.
Twenty-one of the executions have been acknowledged by the government while Amnesty has accounted for 19 more.
The Iranians use a particularly brutal form of hanging but tying a rope around the neck of the subject and then pulling him up into the air with a crane. It avoids snapping the neck of the person, which is the purpose of trapdoor hangings.
Iranian officials have long viewed hangings as a way of cleansing the country of those who violate core Islamic values. For example, a few years ago, the head of an Iranian delegation, Mr Yahyavi, shocked Western leaders at a conference when he responded to objections to the hanging of two teenagers believed to be homosexuals by declaring that homosexuals and lesbians should tortured and killed . . . all in the name of morality.