Iran has sentenced 51 people to death by stoning because they were caught cheating on their partners.
A total of 23 women and 28 men currently await death as hardline Islamist judges and lawmakers continue to take a zero-tolerance attitude towards adultery, which is considered a grave sin under their interpretation of the Quran.
In Iran, death by stoning involves wrapping victims in linen and burying them in sand up to their waists before they are pelted with rocks.
Those sentenced to death by stoning often experience waits of several years without knowing their execution date, with most only finding out when executioners arrive at their cell door.
Some of those currently condemned to death are only in their twenties, according to papers from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) obtained by The Sun.
Hossein Abedini, deputy director of the NCRI’s UK representative office, told the newspaper: “The Iranian regime’s brutal practice of stoning is enshrined in the mullahs’ medieval penal code, which also permits amputation of limbs and eye-gouging.
“The mullahs’ regime is rotten to the core. Such acts of suppression are a vain attempt to contain a disgruntled society that’s on the verge of explosion
The victims live with the constant fear of the moment when the prison guards will open their cell door and call them out to have their sentence served.
Iran is believed to have the highest rate of executions per capita in the world, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre.