Iran has intensified its repression of ethnic minorities, particularly Kurdish and Baluch communities, through arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and executions, a group of UN human rights experts said on Thursday.
The experts said at least 24 members of the Baluch minority and 22 members of the Kurdish minority had been executed in 2026, with many more at imminent risk of execution.
“Iran’s ethnic minorities must be able to live in safety and dignity, free from discrimination,” the experts said in a statement.
Kurds are concentrated mainly in western and northwestern Iran, while many of Iran's Baluch population live in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan. Both predominantly Sunni communities have long faced political, economic and security pressure from the Shiite-led authorities, according to rights groups.
“Reports point to a significant increase in arbitrary arrests, and what appears to be politically motivated sentences,” the experts said, adding that members of ethnic minorities were often detained under broadly defined national security charges.
The experts said a 2025 law expanding the definition of espionage, along with offenses including moharebeh, or “enmity against God,” efsad-fil-arz, or “spreading corruption on earth,” and baghi, or armed rebellion against the Islamic Republic, had been used particularly against Kurds.
They described the laws as “a tool to repress dissent.”
Executions rise
Thursday’s warning comes a day after UN human rights chief Volker Türk said Iran had executed at least 56 people on national security-related charges since March 19, including 27 in cases linked to protests earlier this year.
Türk said executions and death sentences had risen since March and that more than 100 other people faced similar charges and the death penalty.
The figures follow a series of executions in recent weeks involving young people detained over the January protests.
Iranian authorities executed 20-year-old Arvin Kheirkhah at Shahroud prison on Saturday after he was sentenced to death over his involvement in the protests, according to information obtained by Iran International.
Days earlier, authorities hanged Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi in Isfahan’s Alikhani Square. They were among 12 young men sentenced to death in a case stemming from protests there in January.
A group of UN human rights experts led by Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, had urged Tehran to halt executions in the Isfahan case, citing concerns about closed proceedings, alleged ill-treatment and the use of confessions broadcast on state television.
Türk urged Iranian authorities to halt all executions and move towards abolishing the death penalty.
The use of nas has become increasingly common among students, particularly in middle school, said Mostafa Mohammadpour, head of the state Welfare Organization office in the northeastern city of Kashmar. In some cases, he added, children in the upper years of primary school have begun using it.
"What has now become common among students and paves the way for drug dependence starts with the use of nas," Mohammadpour said. "Unfortunately, children have very easy access to it because selling it is not considered a crime and it is not recognized as a narcotic."
Nas, known across the region as naswar, is a moist green tobacco mixture held under the lip or tongue. It is a centuries-old habit in eastern Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, and because it produces no smoke, a child can use it in a classroom without anyone noticing.
'Why don't they stop it?'
The warning drew a wave of responses from users reacting to Iran International's coverage, many asking why the product remains on open sale despite years of warnings about its risks.
"Why don't they stop it from being distributed?" one commenter asked.
Another argued the answer lies in giving children somewhere else to go. "Municipalities should build at least three sports complexes for students in every district and make them free. School facilities should also be improved so students stay occupied and don't turn to it," the commenter wrote.
Others aimed their frustration at official indifference. "Do they even care what happens to young people?" one wrote.
Some tied the issue to wider political grievances. One X user alleged that the authorities allow addiction to spread among the young to blunt political activism, and wrote that nas "causes addiction quickly," "causes cancer in the mouth" and "damages teeth," adding a claim, which could not be independently verified, that products sold in Iran contain arsenic.
Within every child's reach
Because nas is not classified as an illegal narcotic, it sits on the shelves of small shops, and students obtain it with little difficulty, according to Mohammadpour.
The habit is most entrenched in the northeastern province of Razavi Khorasan, he said, but is no longer confined to one region, with nas now readily available across much of the country.
Tehran is no exception. Iranian media have reported vendors openly selling nas in and around the capital's Molavi market, the green tobacco displayed in packages large and small under a variety of brands.
The market draws buyers with lower prices and a wider selection, though the product is also sold through herbal shops across the city.
For children, the attraction is obvious: it is cheap, easy to hide and everywhere.
More than a tobacco habit
Doctors warn the risks run well beyond nicotine.
Research has linked nas to cancers of the mouth, esophagus and pancreas, as well as cardiovascular disease. Health experts also reject the belief that smokeless tobacco is a safe alternative to cigarettes, warning that no tobacco product is without risk.
The spread among students carries a further danger: early exposure to nicotine can leave children more vulnerable to addiction of every kind later in life, the concern at the heart of Mohammadpour's "gateway" warning.
A country's changing addictions
The warning lands against a wider shift in substance use in Iran.
More than 4.4 million people in Iran use narcotics regularly or occasionally, according to a report last year in the daily Shargh, which estimated that, counting their families, some 15 million people live with the consequences of drug use.
Officials and health experts have also pointed to rising use of synthetic drugs, a falling age of first use, and growing numbers of women and young people among users, signs that addiction in Iran is getting younger.
The children with green packs in their pockets, on this reading, are not an anomaly but the leading edge.
Türk said executions and death sentences had risen since March, with more than 100 other people facing similar charges and the death penalty.
He urged Iranian authorities to halt all executions and move towards abolishing the death penalty.
The figures come after a series of executions in recent weeks of young people detained over the January protests, some of which drew gatherings by relatives and members of the public seeking to stop the sentences from being carried out.
Protesters executed
Iranian authorities executed 20-year-old Arvin Kheirkhah at Shahroud prison on Saturday after he was sentenced to death over his involvement in the January protests, according to information obtained by Iran International.
Kheirkhah had been convicted by a Revolutionary Court on charges including moharebeh, or "waging war against God."
His family gathered outside Shahroud prison on Friday night in an effort to stop the execution, according to Iran International. In a final conversation with his family, Kheirkhah urged them not to let him be forgotten.
His execution came days after authorities hanged Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi in Isfahan's Alikhani Square.
The two were among 12 young men sentenced to death in a case stemming from the January protests in the square. Iranian authorities accused the defendants of involvement in the deaths of four security personnel as well as arson and vandalism.
People gathered around the square overnight before the executions amid a heavy deployment of security forces.
Two other defendants in the same case, Golmohammad Mohammadi and Erfan Esfandiari, were executed on July 19, bringing the number put to death in the case to four.
Others remain under death sentences
A group of UN human rights experts, led by Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, urged Tehran in late July to halt the executions of defendants in the Isfahan case.
"Sentencing 12 people to death in one hearing, in a closed courtroom and without clarity as to each defendant's individual responsibility violates established fair trial standards," the UN experts said in a statement.
They said the defendants, aged from their late teens to early twenties, had reportedly faced arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and, in some cases, ill-treatment.
The UN experts also raised concerns that convictions relied heavily on confessions broadcast on Iranian state television, while Revolutionary Court hearings were held behind closed doors and the judgments were not made public.
