A human rights group has recorded nearly 700 executions, including those of members of ethnic and religious minorities convicted of “enmity against God,” in just a little over six months in the Shiite Muslim nation of Iran, which put people to death even during the holy month of Ramadan.

In its new report, Amnesty International says Iran put to death 694 people between Jan. 1 and July 15, which is equivalent to executing more than three people per day.

“Iran’s staggering execution toll for the first half of this year paints a sinister picture of the machinery of the state carrying out premeditated, judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale,” Said Boumedouha, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, says in the report.

Executions are particularly dangerous in Iran, as trials there are deeply flawed, detainees are often denied access to lawyers in the investigative stage, and there are inadequate procedures for appeal, pardon and commutation, the group said.

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