Iran accelerates executions of political prisoners under cover of war

The clerical regime in Iran has carried out the executions of at least 18 political prisoners and protesters in the last six weeks. 

Analysts suggest the dictatorship is rushing death sentences through the courts at an unprecedented speed to project strength and maintain control while global attention is focused on the regional war and fluctuating oil prices, News.Az reports, citing NCR-Iran.

The reporting highlights that these judicial killings, which often target members of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), are a deliberate strategy to instill fear in a society that has grown increasingly defiant.

Among the prominent victims was Babak Alipour, a 34-year-old law graduate and activist arrested for his ties to the Resistance movement. Alipour and several fellow PMOI supporters were sentenced to death by a "hanging judge," with their appeals expedited in recent weeks. Before his execution at the notorious Ghezel Hesar prison, Alipour smuggled out video messages stating that the surge in executions was a sign of regime weakness rather than strength. In a final display of defiance, footage captured the prisoners singing protest anthems in the prison courtyard shortly before they were hanged.

The regime has employed brutal methods to suppress public mourning, including "double hangings" and refusing to return the bodies of the deceased to their families for burial. Families who traveled to Tehran were turned away, as the authorities seek to prevent funerals from becoming focal points for new protests. Despite these medieval tactics, dissidents warn that the regime’s attempt to use the gallows to prove it is still in control is failing to break the spirit of the Resistance. The reporting emphasizes that as diplomatic talks stall, the human rights catastrophe inside Iran’s death rows remains the true indicator of the regime's growing panic.

News.Az 

By Leyla Şirinova