Iran executed at least 834 people last year, the highest number since 2015, as capital punishment in the Islamic republic surged to a “staggering” level, human rights groups said on Tuesday. The number of executions, which Iran has always carried out by hanging in recent years, was up some 43 percent on 2022. It marked only the second time in two decades that more than 800 executions were recorded in a year, after 972 executions in 2015, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) said in the joint report. The groups accused Iran of using the …