IRAN’S cruel regime barbarically executes the most people in the world per capita for crimes which include being gay and drinking alcohol.

Medieval style methods have been used over the years — some with a sinister modern twist — and all are specifically designed to inflict as much suffering before the condemned prisoner dies.

7 The chief method used by Iran is hanging. This is not done on a drop, where death comes quick after the neck is broken Credit: Fars News Agency

7 Execution victims who have been hoisted on cranes with nooses around their necks

7 The horrifying executions are carried out in public Credit: AFP

Earlier this week Iranian intelligence ministry official appeared in a state TV documentary which bragged about capturing 17 CIA spies and sentencing them to death.

Last year 273 people were executed for a range of crimes in a manner that would not look out of place in Isis' Caliphate.

But the actual numbers are likely to be much higher as most executions are carried out secretly.

Some have committed serious crimes such as rape and murder.

Over the years others have been killed for being gay, committing adultery, sex outside marriage and drinking alcohol.

In fact “Revolutionary Courts” have the power to execute anyone for anything they deem to be “corruption on earth”.

Children as young as 12 are sentenced to death which international law forbids.

In 2018 six kids were executed, including two child brides who killed their abusive adult husbands.

What are Revolutionary Courts? They are a special system of courts in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Trials, which last a few minutes, are blatantly unfair. They are not held in public, there is no jury and sometimes defence lawyers are banned. Human rights group say the evidence used for conviction is often extracted by torture. A single judge decides the fate and punishment which is often death. Appeals are not an option. The courts were founded in 1979 when the Islamic regime came to power. Opposition was rooted out and convicted. Today they are still used as a tool of repression.

CONSTRUCTION CRANES USED

The chief method used by Iran is hanging.

This is not done on a drop, where death comes quick after the neck is broken.

Instead construction cranes are used.

The condemned person is hoisted up on a neck noose and essentially strangled in a slow and agonising way.

Crowds are encouraged to watch and some executions are televised.

Afterwards the family of the execution victims are reportedly forced to pay for the noose and are not given the bodies until they pay up.

Iran also executes people by firing squad, although it is a method not often used these days.

Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, thousands were shot for so-called political offenses, drug trafficking, and crimes against the state.

As a final humiliation, firing squad victims have traditionally been made to pay for the bullets that kill them.

'THROWN FROM CLIFFS'

Although officially outlawed since 1981, human rights groups claim a number of people are still being stoned to death in Iran.

This is likely due to the murky nature of Iran's Sharia-based legal system where judges are only given vague punishment guidelines.

This includes ordering judges to simply to execute individuals according to "valid Islamic sources", without specifying the approved methods.

While Iran denies the stonings are taking place, human rights groups say victims are wrapped in cloth and made to stand in a hole in the ground while stones are thrown at them.

The total number of executions carried out in Iran stands only next to China, whose population is over 17 folds greater.

But the cruelty does not begin with the execution.

Iran Human Rights Monitor says many spend years lingering on death row where they are horribly tortured.

This is said to include stripping prisoners and pouring boiling water on them, pushing needles into their genitals, ripping out finger nails and hanging them by their feet.

According to Amnesty, at least nine people died in custody under suspicious circumstances following their arrests in connection with the protests in late 2017 and early 2018.

Officials claimed some had committed suicide, claims which were disputed by their families.

Worryingly in 2018 the lawyer Mohammad Najafi was arrested, sentenced to 14 years in prison and given 74 lashes on charges including “disturbing public order” after revealing some of the victims' bodies showed evidence of torture.

7 This four way image was smuggled out by Iran's exiled opposition and shows the stills from the what is said to be the first video footage of a public stoning ever to be smuggled out of Iran Credit: Reuters

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Amnestry International told the Sun Online: “For years, Iranian authorities have continued to display a gruesome commitment to the use of the death penalty.

"The death penalty is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and Amnesty International considers its use horrendous in all circumstances.

"The Iranian authorities must impose an immediate moratorium on the death penalty with a view to abolishing it completely.”

A Human Right’s Watch spokeswomen added: "We have long called Iran to place a moratorium on executions, starting with executions of individuals who are sentenced to death for offences they committed as children."

It is feared that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian charity worker held in Iran on spying charges after being arrested three years ago on a visit to her parents, could face execution.

7 The exiled opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran simulate a stoning in front of the UN building in Vienna Credit: Reuters

7 The families of the executed prisoners are billed for the noose used to kill their relatives Credit: AFP

7 Amnesty International is campaigning against the number of children, some of whom are pictured, who are on death row

Video of crew inside Brit oil tanker seized by Iran

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