'This may be the last time you hear my voice': Political executions surge in Iran since start of war
What happened
Mehrab Abdollahzadeh, a 29-year-old Kurdish shop owner arrested in 2022 during protests following Mahsa Amini's death, was executed in May 2026 after claiming torture forced false confessions. He was accused of involvement in killing a Basij militia member.
Since the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February 2026, the UN has verified execution of at least 32 political prisoners. This represents a sharp increase from 45 politically-motivated executions across all of 2025, according to Amnesty International. Fourteen of those executed in 2026 were arrested during January's uprising.
Other documented cases include Sasan Azadvar, a 21-year-old karate champion executed for attacking police during January protests without lethal consequences, and Erfan Shakourzadeh, a 29-year-old aerospace engineering student hanged on 11 May after claiming forced confession on espionage charges. Iran carried out 2,159 total executions in 2025, the highest since 1989.
Iranian judiciary head Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei dismissed international criticism on 30 April, stating courts would not be swayed by external pressure. Human rights organizations report executions occurring with minimal transparency, no warning to families or lawyers, and bodies not returned to families.
Who's perspective
This article is written from a human rights advocacy framing, centering the accounts of condemned prisoners and the assessments of organizations like Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Office, and Kurdish human rights groups. That institutional positioning means the article's evidentiary weight rests heavily on sources whose stated mission is to document and oppose these executions, which shapes which claims are foregrounded and which are treated as credible.
Taken for granted
The article takes for granted that the executions described are politically motivated, treating that characterization as established rather than contested. The alternative framing — that Iranian authorities genuinely believe some defendants posed security threats, however disputed the evidence — is noted only briefly through a single quote from Iran's judiciary head and is not explored as a substantive counter-argument.
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