Iran sees surge in political executions after war-related crackdown

Iran has carried out a sharp rise in executions of people accused of political and security-related offences since the start of the war, according to figures cited by the UN and Amnesty International. The latest case highlighted is that of Mehrab Abdollahzadeh, who was put to death earlier this month after being held on death row in western Iran. A voice note attributed to him, obtained by the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, said he had been tortured into making false confessions and insisted the charges against him were untrue.

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Abdollahzadeh was arrested in 2022 during the nationwide protests that followed the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini. He was accused of involvement in the killing of a member of Iran's Basij militia force. In the recording, he said he was speaking from Oromiyeh Central Prison and feared it might be the last time his voice was heard.

The account cannot be independently verified, but it has become part of a wider picture of executions linked to national security cases and political dissent. The UN says it has verified at least 32 executions of political prisoners since the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February. Amnesty International says 45 politically motivated executions have taken place across 2025.

The UN Human Rights Office has warned that the death penalty is increasingly being used to silence political opposition, while Amnesty says people in Iran have been waking up to near-daily announcements of executions. Some of those executed this year were accused of spying for Israel or the CIA, while others were said to have links to an exiled opposition group. The scale of the figures matters because they point to a broader tightening of internal security after a period of conflict.

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The post-attack environment appears to have intensified the authorities' use of capital punishment against people accused of threatening the state. That has raised concern among rights groups that executions are being used not only as punishment, but also as a warning to deter dissent. The issue is also significant because it links domestic repression to a wider regional confrontation involving Iran, the United States and Israel.

The current surge sits within a longer pattern of executions in Iran that rights groups have repeatedly criticised. The row of cases described in the source includes people arrested in relation to the 2022 protests and others detained after an uprising in January this year, which was crushed with lethal force. The source says 14 of those executed this year were arrested in connection with that uprising.

It also notes that last year Iran carried out 2,159 executions, underscoring the scale of the country's use of the death penalty. The authorities have not publicly addressed every case in the same way, and some executions are announced while others are believed to happen in secret. The UN Human Rights Office has said it is concerned about that lack of transparency.

Rights groups say the combination of torture allegations, forced confessions and rapid executions makes it difficult for families and lawyers to challenge the process. The use of hanging at dawn, described by Amnesty, adds to the sense of urgency around each case. What remains unclear is how many further executions may follow, and whether the pace will continue at the same level in the coming weeks.

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It is also not clear how many of the cases cited by rights groups will be independently confirmed by the authorities. What to watch next is whether the UN, Amnesty and other monitors publish updated counts, and whether there is any official response to the allegations of torture, secret executions and politically motivated charges.

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