A parliamentary spokesperson on Monday lamented that no legal action has been taken against a pharma manufacturer linked to a sanctioned state economic giant even after its medicines killed dozens of dialysis patients.
The spokesman for the parliament's health committee Salman Es’haghi confirmed that the deaths of at least 70 dialysis patients were due to aluminum-contaminated medication.
In June, Iran International reported that Samen Pharmaceutical Company, a subsidiary of the influential Astan Quds Razavi, is the sole producer of the medication.
Without revealing the manufacturer's identity, Es’haghi added that production of the medication has not been halted and while suggesting that a legal case was filed at the time, said the judiciary has yet to initiate serious legal action for accountability.
The Ministry of Health said Monday that the deaths were cases from the previous year, and that there is no cause for concern today.
The contamination surfaced in early 2024, initially with reports of fatalities among dialysis patients in Mashhad and Isfahan.
Early estimates cited 10 to 12 deaths, but as investigations progressed, the toll quickly climbed to 50, eventually reaching 70 confirmed deaths.
Symptoms included brain dysfunction, seizures, infections, and coma - all consistent with aluminum toxicity.
Es’haghi said that the initial assumption was low-quality production, but later findings suggested contamination with aluminum, leading to severe complications.
Criticizing the judiciary's slow response, Es'haghi said that months have passed without any significant action.
“If the judiciary continues to neglect its responsibilities,” he warned, “the Health Committee will disclose the name of the company and escalate the matter through other channels.”
Dialysis drug maker linked to sanctioned group
Headquartered in Mashhad and directly overseen by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Astan Quds Razavi - the parent company of the drug producer Samen - has a long and complex history of influence over Iran’s pharmaceutical sector.
Former President Ebrahim Raisi previously served as the head of Astan Quds Razavi, a conglomerate with extensive holdings across Iran’s economy.
Astan Quds Razavi was sanctioned by the US primarily for being owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by Iran’s Supreme Leader. Raisi’s successor as custodian, Ahmad Marvi, was also sanctioned under this designation.
The Iranian Food and Drug Administration first acknowledged issues with the dialysis solution in June, citing reports of adverse reactions linked to the product manufactured by Samen Pharmaceutical Company.
The Food and Drug Administration temporarily halted production, distribution, and use of the company’s peritoneal dialysis solution until further testing could be conducted; however, it remains unclear why production has resumed without confirmed safety improvements.
Samen Pharmaceutical Company, founded in 1984, holds a dominant position in Iran’s pharmaceutical industry as the sole producer of peritoneal dialysis solutions. Its shareholders include Astan Quds Razavi, which controls a 70% stake, along with the Iranian Retirement Fund and Hakim Pharmaceuticals.
Es’haghi said that the company's head admitted a lack of oversight on raw materials used in manufacturing, with aluminum-contaminated ingredients apparently slipping through quality control.
Iran’s dialysis patients, estimated at around 800,000, rely heavily on peritoneal dialysis solutions like those produced by Samen Pharmaceutical. Peritoneal dialysis involves using the abdominal lining as a membrane for filtering blood, and contamination of the solution can have severe, even fatal, consequences. Patients affected by the contaminated batch, distributed between December 2023 and May 2024, suffered irreversible damage.
Efforts to uncover details of the contamination have faced obstacles.
In June, when deaths were first reported, Samen Pharmaceutical reportedly informed journalists it was barred from commenting on the matter by a superior organization, believed to be Astan Quds Razavi.
This restriction has fueled public concern, as Astan Quds Razavi has previously been implicated in various allegations of corruption and misconduct.
The wave of executions comes in the shadows of the escalating tensions between Iran and Israel, a backdrop some rights advocates argue is being used to divert attention from the domestic situation.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based organization, said: “While the world’s attention is focused on the tensions between Iran and Israel, the Islamic Republic is using this opportunity to conduct the largest wave of executions in Iran’s prisons in two decades."
He called on the international community to respond with urgency, warning of potentially even higher execution rates in the coming months under the threat of a regional conflict.
Among those executed were Afghan, Baluch, and Kurdish citizens, and at least six women. Charges varied widely, encompassing intentional murder, drug-related offenses, and ambiguous charges like “enmity against God” and “corruption on earth” with two of the executions conducted publicly.
The group's report touched on the role capital punishment has played in Iran’s judicial system. Iran's use of the death penalty has consistently drawn criticism from global human rights organizations, with Amnesty International recently findings showing that nearly 75% of documented executions worldwide in 2023 took place in Iran.
In a report marking World Day Against the Death Penalty, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) documented at least 811 executions in Iran over the past year, a figure that includes Jamshid Sharmahd, a German-Iranian national whose execution last week sparked international outrage.
Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, also addressed the increase in executions in her first report, saying that Iran’s intensified use of the death penalty extends beyond recognized legal standards.
Citing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Sato added that the death penalty should be reserved for only the “most serious crimes,” expressing concern over charges like “corruption on earth” being used as grounds for execution.
According to the Iran Human Rights Organization, more than 350 people have been executed in the three months since Masoud Pezeshkian’s presidency began, an acceleration that coincides with growing tensions over Iran’s nuclear program and regional conflicts.
Sholeh Zamini, a women’s rights advocate (where is she based?), commented that Iran’s consistent refusal to allow UN special rapporteurs to conduct in-country investigations prevents an accurate assessment of these human rights violations.
“The Islamic Republic has always blocked UN rapporteurs, likely because it wishes to keep its human rights abuses out of the international spotlight,” Zamini noted.
As in previous years, Iran’s execution record has extended to ethnic and religious minorities, with Afghan citizens facing increasing rates of execution since the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan.
The report shows that at least 49 Afghans were executed in the first ten months of 2024, a trend rights advocates attribute to both political motivations and racial discrimination within Iran’s justice system.
Roya Boroumand, executive director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, a US-based human rights organization, sees the pattern of heightened executions as a response to internal instability which has remained high since the 2022 uprising.
“Historically, the government ramps up executions when it feels threatened or unstable. We saw this following the Iran-Iraq War and during the nuclear negotiations under President Hassan Rouhani, when the annual execution rate reached 1,050,” she explained.
Boroumand further highlighted an emerging trend of capital punishment extending to women. “It used to be mostly minorities, but now even regular citizens, including women, are receiving death sentences,” she said, pointing to what she described as a means of intimidating the broader population in times of unrest.
Following the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising after the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody in 2022, Iran’s leadership has increasingly wielded the death penalty as a means of suppressing dissent.
Amnesty International reported that Tehran’s intensifying reliance on capital punishment appears aimed at instilling fear and reinforcing the government’s control.
