GVF — The European ’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy says she is “deeply concerned” about the alarming number of executions in Iran. The rate of executions in Iran has reached its “highest in recent history,” Catherine Ashton cautioned on Friday, “making Iran the world’s leading user of the death penalty per inhabitant.”

Observers and human rights groups believe Iran’s excessive use of executions is aimed at quelling dissent in the country.

In a March 2011 report, Amnesty International announced that despite an apparent decline in the number of executions worldwide, at least 527 executions had been carried out the year before, almost half of those having been carried out in Iran.

“Hundreds of individuals were executed in 2011 after grossly unfair trials, without the right of appeal and for offences which according to international standards should not result in capital punishment,” Ashton continued.

The EU foreign policy chief called on Iran to “halt pending executions and to introduce a moratorium” on the death penalty.