The 28-year-old woman, arrested while pregnant after her husband's death, was hanged. Her baby was placed in the care of the grandmother.

Iran executed a 28-year-old woman convicted of murdering her husband who had a child in prison, which was entrusted to her maternal grandmother, two NGOs announced from abroad on Tuesday.

Asma Zarei was hanged in Ardabil on May 20, according to the Norway-based human rights organizations Hengaw and Iran Human Rights (IHR). Iranian media have not reported the execution.

According to IHR, she was arrested three years ago on suspicion of killing her husband with sleeping pills. She was pregnant at the time and gave birth to a child in prison two years ago. Before her execution, she asked her mother to take care of the child, again according to IHR.

Sixth woman hanged since January

This is the sixth woman to be executed in Iran since January, the two organizations said. According to NGOs, including Amnesty International, Iran is the country that uses the death penalty most frequently after China.

An IHR report identified at least 48 women executed by Iran in 2025, including 21 for the murder of their husband or fiancé.

Human rights organizations believe that, in some cases, women sentenced to death killed abusive husbands and were unable to escape the sentence because they could not pay the "blood price," a practice permitted by Iranian Sharia law, which serves to compensate the husband's family.

In April, US President Donald Trump drew attention to the cases of eight women facing execution by sharing a post on social media about X claiming they risked hanging.

Activists later indicated that some of them did not face the death penalty or had already been released.

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), based in the United States, reported on Monday that the Iranian Supreme Court had overturned the death sentence of one of them, Bita Hemmati, in a case related to the January protests.