European Parliament Members are concerned about the rising number of executions in Iran since President Hassan Rouhani took office in 2013.

More than 270 MEPs signed a joint statement calling on the European Union to “condition” its relations with Iran on the improvement of human rights.

Iran has currently the highest number of executions in the world per capita. It is also the leading executioner of minors in the world.

While China leads the world in state executions, Iran is the leader in per capita executions, with approximately 1,000 executions in 2015, according to figures from Amnesty International which described the rate of ececutions as ‘’a horrific image of the planned state-killing machine.’’

Also, International human rights organizations state that Iran has the highest number of juvenile executions in the world.

‘’The Human Rights situation deteriorated since President Rohani came to power. Repressive measures against women and the religious minorities, including Christians and Jews, have continued to increase,’’ said Darya Safai, an Iranian-Belgian Women’s Rights activist during a seminar in the European Parliament .

She stressed that the penal code which was introduced under Rohani foresees corporal punishment. ‘’Torture is widespread at various place of detention,’’ she added.

‘’Iran has the highest number of journalists and social media bloggers in prison.''

Despite high hopes that the nuclear agreement with Iran would bring improvements in human rights, the situation has got worse day by day.

The UN special rapporteur on Iran recently announced that rate of hangings are now the highest in the past 27 years.

Overall, during Hassan Rouhani’s presidency there have been more than 2,300 executions.

The president has said that the executions he endorses are examples of “God’s commandments”.

Belgian MEP Gerard Deprez, who chairs the Friends of a Free Iran in the European Parliament, said: “It is a great contradiction that we in the EU are so proud that all 28 Member states have abandoned death penalty but we seem to have no problem doing business with the world’s leading executioner-state. If EU does not insist publicly and seriously on improvement of human rights this would be a great damage to our credibility.”

In their statement, the 271 MEPs, including six vice presidents of the EU Parliament as well as several committee chairs, and some vice-presidents of the political groups, called on the European Union and the member states “to condition any further relations with Iran to a clear progress on human rights and a halt to executions.”