In recent years, Iran has had the highest rate of executions of any nation except China. That reputation was solidified under President Ahmadinejad, who has presided over a quadrupling in executions, to 346 in 2008 from 86 in 2005, the year he took office, according to Amnesty International.

Iran does not release statistics on executions, so it is impossible to compare monthly or annual rates. But in recent days, there has been a flood of reports from around the country of executions, most involving convicted drug dealers or criminals. On Friday, news reports said that over the previous 10 days, 16 people had been executed in cities including Kerman, Isfahan and Ahwaz.

In mid-October, Behnood Shojaee, who was on death row for committing a murder four years ago at the age of 17, was executed despite international calls for his sentence to be commuted because he was a minor at the time of the crime.

Drewery Dyke, a researcher with Amnesty International, said that it was not unusual for Iranian officials to step up executions in the wake of a political crisis. In 1988, after Iran agreed to a cease-fire with Iraq, the government executed thousands of political prisoners not initially charged with capital crimes and already serving sentences in prison.

“There does seem to be a greater willingness across the spectrum for the authorities to deploy force in every way, from the police through to the administration of justice,” he said. “There seems to be that much higher level of ruthlessness.”

According to Amnesty International, there were 196 executions in Iran in the first half of 2009. Between the June 12 election and the president’s inauguration on Aug. 5, executions surged to an average of two a day, the group said. So far this year, there have been 359 executions, though an exact tally is hard to come by because the group compiles the data based on reports from government-affiliated news sources.

Since the postelection surge in executions, the government has moved aggressively to impose the death penalty on people linked to separatist insurgent groups, even when they have not been convicted of violent activities themselves, human rights groups said.