Iran executed a man publicly on Monday who was convicted of murdering lawyer Mahmoudreza Jafar Aghaei in August 2021. The execution took place in Shahroud, Semnan province, marking the first public hanging of the year in the country, where executions are generally conducted in prisons. The convict, a 20-year-old who confessed to the crime, was said to have been hired by a gang to carry out the murder with a hunting rifle in front of the victim's family. Human rights groups, including Iran Human Rights, have called for global condemnation of public executions, which are rare in Iran. The Iranian judiciary's Chief Justice highlighted that, despite attempts to mediate, the victim's parents insisted on the execution. Iran remains one of the leading countries in carrying out executions, primarily for drug-related offenses.