Iran has executed by hanging a 17-year-old accused of murder, according to rights groups.

Hengaw and Iran Human Rights (IHR) said Hamidreza Azari was hanged on Friday in Sabzevar prison, located in Khorasan-e Razavi province.

Azari was 16 years old in May when he killed a man in a brawl, the rights groups said, saying the execution constitutes a new violation by Iran of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which defines a child as any person under the age of 18.

“Iran is one of the few countries that sentences children to death and executes more minors than any other country,” IHR said, adding that according to its data, at least 68 minors had been executed in Iran since 2010.

“In Iran, you have to be 18 years old to obtain a driver’s licence, but you only need to be 15 years old to be executed,” the group’s director, Mahmood-Amiry Moghaddam, said.

Iran also executed a man in his twenties on Thursday, the eighth person to be hanged in a case linked to the protest movement provoked by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in September 2022.

According to IHR, at least 684 people have been executed this year in Iran, mainly for death sentences issued in drug and murder cases.