Iran's Surge in Executions: A Tool of Political Repression

The connection is breaking up. But Mehrab Abdollazadeh’s voice comes through, surprisingly steady given the circumstances.

This is an adapted translation of a BBC correspondent report. The original English version can be read here.

He is on death row in western Iran and speaks quickly – as if time is running out. And his message is one of desperation.

“You are hearing my voice from Urmia Central Prison, and perhaps this is the last time you will hear it,” he says in a voice message that has come into the possession of the Kurdish Human Rights Network (KHRN).

“From the first day of my arrest, they forced me to confess through torture and threats, to confess to something I did not do. None of the charges against me are true. They know it, and God knows it. I am innocent.”

Mehrab was arrested in 2022, during the nationwide protests that began after the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody – she had been detained for improperly wearing her hijab.

He was accused of involvement in the killing of a member of Iran’s Basij militia. In early May – after 42 months of constant fear and sleepless nights – he was executed.

Iran has seen a surge in executions of people on political charges. According to UN figures, at least 32 political prisoners have been confirmed executed since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.

According to the human rights organisation Amnesty International, a total of 45 people were executed in Iran in 2025 on politically motivated charges.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights notes that the death penalty is increasingly being used to suppress political dissent.

Dawn executions

Some of those executed this year were accused of spying for Israel or the CIA, others of links to an opposition group in exile. Fourteen of them were arrested in connection with the mass protests that took place in January this year.

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“In Iran, the authorities carry out executions by hanging. They carry them out at dawn,” says Nassim Papayanni of Amnesty International.

“People in Iran wake up almost every day to announcements of executions.”

“They use the death penalty as a tool of political repression to instil fear in the population and, essentially, to suppress and stifle any possible dissent,” he adds.

While some executions are publicly announced, the UN Human Rights Office told the BBC that some death sentences are likely carried out secretly.

According to Amnesty International, 2,159 people were executed in Iran last year – the highest figure since 1989. According to the organisation, the vast majority of death sentences were for drug-related offences and murder.

The UN fears that this figure could be even higher this year.

According to Kaveh Kermanashahi of the Kurdish Human Rights Network, the regime is increasingly resorting to the death penalty in an attempt to restore its authority, undermined by the January uprising and the war.

“Faced with numerous internal and external crises, it is trying to demonstrate its strength and send the following message: ‘We are not gone, the situation is still under control.’ This is done by increasing repression and the number of executions,” he says.

At the end of last month, Iranian state television showed a report on the execution of Sasan Azadvar, a 21-year-old karate champion from the city of Isfahan. He was convicted of “moharebeh” (i.e. “waging war against God”) and “effective cooperation with the enemy” for participating in a clash with police during the January protests. In the video footage, he confesses to breaking a police car window with a stick and asking for petrol to set it on fire.

However, he was not charged with committing a crime that resulted in a death, which – according to international law – is the legal threshold for the application of the death penalty.

Iranian authorities did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment on reports of torture and the increasing use of the death penalty, including against Sasan Azadvar.

However, on April 30, the head of Iran’s judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, rejected international criticism of sentences handed down in connection with the January riots, stating that Iranian courts would not yield to pressure.

Thoughts of execution ‘every day and every night’

Each of those sentenced has their own story. But human rights activists point to some worrying trends. In particular, the death penalty is disproportionately applied to members of the country’s ethnic minorities.

On May 11, 29-year-old aerospace engineering master’s student Erfan Shakorzadeh was hanged. Iran’s judicial authorities stated that he was found guilty of passing secret information to the intelligence services of Israel and the US.

However, the Norway-based human rights organisation Hengaw published a note, which they claim he wrote before his death.

“I was arrested on fabricated charges of espionage and, after eight and a half months of torture and solitary confinement, was forced to give false confessions. Another innocent life must not be taken in silence,” it reads.

Hengaw stated that it is deeply concerned about the speed with which trials are conducted, sentences are passed and executions are carried out, as well as the “complete lack of transparency” in judicial proceedings.