Behind the Fog of War: Iran's Record Execution Spree and the Targeting of Political Opposition

In the first three months of 2026, Iranian authorities executed at least 657 people — a pace that, if sustained, would surpass even the record set the previous year [1]. The acceleration began well before the current conflict: Iran recorded 834 executions in 2023, 975 in 2024, and more than 2,000 in 2025 [2][3]. But the war with the United States and Israel, which erupted on February 28, 2025, has provided what critics describe as a smokescreen for the most intensive campaign of state killing in nearly four decades.

The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran stated in October 2025 that "external aggression has fuelled deeper internal repression," describing the rise in executions as "a deliberate policy of fear and retribution" [4]. Human rights organizations, Western governments, and the UN Special Rapporteur have all documented the pattern. Iran's judiciary and government deny that executions serve a political purpose, framing them as lawful responses to terrorism, drug trafficking, and threats to national security.

The Numbers: A Steep and Sustained Climb

Source: Iran Human Rights (IHR)

Data as of Mar 31, 2026CSV

Between 2018 and 2021, recorded executions in Iran ranged from 253 to 333 per year, according to Iran Human Rights (IHR), the Norway-based monitoring organization [2]. The 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody marked an inflection point. Executions rose to 582 that year, then climbed to 834 in 2023 and 975 in 2024 — a 17% year-over-year increase [2][3].

The 2025 figure — over 2,000 confirmed executions by year's end — represents the highest count since the mass executions of political prisoners in 1988 [5]. In November 2025 alone, at least 260 people were executed, the highest single-month figure in nearly two decades [6]. The first quarter of 2026 has continued at a comparable rate, with 657 executions by the end of March [1].

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) confirmed that Iran carried out at least 1,500 executions in 2025, noting that the "scale points to systematic use of capital punishment as state intimidation" [7]. The gap between the OHCHR's floor of 1,500 and IHR's count above 2,000 reflects the difficulty of monitoring a system that operates largely in secret.

What the Charges Reveal — and Conceal

Source: Iran Human Rights (IHR) Annual Report 2024

Data as of Feb 1, 2025CSV

In 2024, 52% of recorded executions were for drug-related offenses, 43% for murder, 3% for security or political charges, and 2% for sexual offenses [2]. At first glance, the low share of explicitly political charges appears to undercut claims of political targeting. But this breakdown requires context.

Drug offenses in Iran fall under the jurisdiction of Revolutionary Courts — the same courts that handle political and national security cases [8]. These courts systematically deny defendants access to independent lawyers, conduct closed proceedings, and issue death sentences after trials lasting hours or, in some cases, minutes [9]. In 2024, at least 534 executions were based on death sentences issued by Revolutionary Courts [9].

Amnesty International has documented cases where defendants were sentenced to death less than a month after arrest, with state-appointed lawyers who "failed to represent their interests" [9]. The organization described the trial of Amirhossein Hatami, an 18-year-old protester executed in April 2026, as "grossly unfair" — he was hanged 84 days after his arrest [10]. The judiciary's Mizan Online website said Hatami had acted "against national security" on behalf of Israel and the United States [10].

The security charges themselves often use vague categories. "Moharebeh" (enmity against God) and "efsad-fil-arz" (corruption on earth) are applied to activities ranging from armed rebellion to social media posts [4]. At least 31 people were executed on security-related charges in 2024, including 9 Kurdish political prisoners and a dissident abducted from a neighboring country [2].

Ethnic Targeting: Who Is Being Executed

Source: IHR / KMMK-GE / Hengaw

Data as of Feb 1, 2025CSV

The demographic composition of those executed reveals a pattern that goes beyond individual criminal cases. Between 2010 and 2024, 97% of those executed on political charges — charges tied to participation in political or armed groups — were Kurds, Baluchis, or Ahwazi Arabs [11]. Kurds alone accounted for 65% of political executions, Baluchis for 25%, and Ahwazi Arabs for 7% [11].

These groups are minorities within Iran's population. The Baluch, estimated at 2–6% of the population, accounted for 17% of drug-related executions in 2024, and 11% of all executions (108 individuals) [6][11]. Kurds, roughly 10% of the population, represented 9% of all executions (84 individuals) but a far larger share of those killed on political charges [6].

The UK Home Office's 2025 country policy note on Iran documented that between 45% and 51% of all those arrested in 2024 and early 2025 were Kurds, and approximately 77% of political or religious activists executed in 2024 were Kurdish [12]. The Kurdish human rights organization KMMK-GE reported that executions of Baluch and Kurdish prisoners in 2024 were carried out across 13 and 16 different provinces respectively, indicating a nationwide pattern rather than localized enforcement [11].

Human rights organizations attribute this concentration to the Iranian government's practice of labeling critics in ethnic minority regions as separatists or terrorists, which enables authorities to justify severe sentences under national security frameworks [6].

The War as Cover: Legal and Procedural Changes

The Iran-Israel-US conflict that began in late February 2025 created conditions under which the executive and judicial branches intensified repression. Between June 13 and August 12, 2025, Iranian authorities arrested more than 20,000 people in connection with the armed conflict, including hundreds accused of "espionage" [5].

Those detained included lawyers, journalists, human rights defenders, and individuals who expressed views about the conflict on social media [13]. Charges included "collaborating with Israel," "taking photos of sensitive locations," "disturbing public opinion," "creating fear and panic," and "media support for Israel" [13]. France 24 reported that the regime was "using the war with Israel to ramp up repression by arresting 'spies'" [13].

Iran did not issue new emergency decrees to authorize these actions. Instead, the existing legal infrastructure of the Revolutionary Courts — originally created after the 1979 revolution — proved sufficient. The courts already operated outside ordinary judicial oversight, with limited appeal rights and closed proceedings [8][9]. What changed was scale and speed: IHR Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam warned that the regime would "ramp up repression in the wake of the ceasefire with Israel in order to cover up military failures, prevent protests, and ensure its continued survival" [5].

The January 2026 protests, triggered by rising cost of living and evolving into nationwide anti-government demonstrations, led to further escalation. Three protesters were publicly hanged in March 2026, the first executions directly tied to those protests [14]. Among them was 19-year-old wrestler Saleh Mohammadi, whose execution drew condemnation from U.S. President Donald Trump [1].

Historical Precedent: Conflict and Crackdown

Iran's use of external conflict and internal unrest to intensify domestic repression has extensive precedent.

The 1988 Prison Massacres: In the final months of the Iran-Iraq War, Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini ordered the execution of thousands of political prisoners. Estimates range from 2,800 to 5,000 killed, with some sources claiming figures above 30,000 [15]. The executions took place in at least 32 cities over approximately five months and targeted primarily members of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) [15]. The 1988 massacres remain the closest historical parallel to the current surge.

The 2009 Green Movement: The post-election protests of 2009 resulted in an estimated 70–112 deaths from security force violence, along with mass arrests and show trials [16]. Executions of protesters followed in the months and years after.

The 2019 Protests: Demonstrations against fuel price increases in November 2019 were met with lethal force. An estimated 321 people were killed by security forces [16].

The 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom Protests: Between 540 and 600 people were killed during the protests following Mahsa Amini's death [16]. Multiple protesters were subsequently executed after trials that Amnesty International described as unfair.

The pattern is consistent: periods of external threat or domestic unrest are followed by accelerated use of capital punishment and extrajudicial killing. The current period combines both — an active armed conflict and recurring domestic protests — producing a scale of executions that surpasses all post-1988 periods.

How Monitors Count the Dead

Iran does not publish official execution statistics. The 92% of executions in 2024 that were conducted without public acknowledgment — 915 out of 993 by one count — illustrate the scale of official secrecy [17].

IHR, the primary independent tracker, relies on a network of sources inside Iran who report on executions in prisons across all 31 provinces [18]. The organization requires confirmation from at least two independent sources before including an execution in its count [18]. In 2024, IHR excluded 39 reported executions that could not be confirmed through this two-source standard [18].

Amnesty International publishes its own annual global report on the death penalty. The U.S. State Department's annual human rights report on Iran draws on both organizations' data and its own diplomatic reporting [17]. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran and the UN Fact-Finding Mission publish separate assessments.

These organizations acknowledge that their figures represent a floor, not a ceiling. The actual number of executions is likely higher than any published count. Discrepancies between sources — for instance, IHR's 2025 count exceeding the OHCHR's by several hundred — reflect differences in sourcing networks and confirmation thresholds rather than fundamental methodological disagreements [7][2].

Is the Surge Real, or Better Documented?

A legitimate counter-argument holds that improved monitoring infrastructure following the 2022 protests — including expanded networks of citizen journalists and better digital communication tools — accounts for some of the apparent increase. IHR itself expanded its operations after 2022, as did Kurdish and Baluchi monitoring groups like Hengaw and KMMK-GE [11][18].

However, multiple data points suggest the increase is real, not an artifact of better reporting. First, even official Iranian media acknowledged a subset of executions each year, and the growth trend in those partial official figures mirrors the growth in independent counts [17]. Second, the 2025 figure of over 2,000 exceeds the 2018 count by roughly eightfold — a magnitude difficult to attribute solely to improved monitoring [2]. Third, the UN Fact-Finding Mission, which conducts its own independent verification, corroborated the "extraordinary spike" [4].

The most rigorous baseline comparison comes from the period 2018–2021, when both monitoring capacity and execution rates were relatively stable at 253–333 per year [2]. The current rate — roughly 167 per month in 2025 — represents a five- to eightfold increase over that baseline. Even accounting for a generous monitoring improvement factor, the underlying trend is unmistakable.

International Response: Sanctions and Their Limits

The EU has repeatedly expanded sanctions in response to Iran's execution record. In April 2025, the EU sanctioned seven Iranian prison and judicial officials and two institutions, including the head of Tehran's Evin Prison and the Revolutionary Court of Shiraz [19]. In January 2026, following the repression of nationwide protests, the EU Foreign Affairs Council reached a political agreement to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization [19].

The United States has sanctioned members of Iran's security forces, prison officials linked to torture and executions, and operatives involved in targeting dissidents abroad [20]. In February 2026, President Trump signed an executive order authorizing tariffs of up to 25% on countries conducting trade with Iran [20].

Despite these measures, the pace of executions has not slowed — it has accelerated. The EU's own assessment acknowledges that human rights sanctions have not changed Iranian judicial behavior. The fundamental problem is structural: Iran's economy is already heavily sanctioned over its nuclear program, limiting the marginal deterrent effect of additional human rights-specific designations.

The Role of China, Russia, and Gulf States

Iran's most significant diplomatic and economic partners have shown little inclination to condition relations on curtailing executions. China and Russia both abstained from — rather than vetoing — UN Security Council Resolution 2817, which condemned Iran's attacks on neighboring states, but neither has publicly raised the execution issue [21].

China has drawn clear limits around its partnership with Iran, particularly regarding military involvement, but treats domestic judicial matters as internal affairs [22]. Russia, engaged in its own conflict in Ukraine and facing similar international criticism over human rights, has no incentive to pressure Tehran on executions [22].

Gulf states, some of which have their own records of capital punishment, have focused their Iran-related concerns on regional security and missile threats rather than human rights. The war has, if anything, pushed Gulf states toward a pragmatic recalibration of relationships with all parties — including potentially deeper economic ties with Russia and China — rather than human rights advocacy [22].

No government or international body with meaningful economic leverage over Iran has made the execution rate a condition of diplomatic engagement. The international response amounts to naming and shaming backed by sanctions that target individuals rather than the economic structures sustaining the regime.

The Human Cost

Behind the statistics are individual cases that illustrate the system's operation. Amirhossein Hatami, 18, was executed on April 2, 2026, after a trial in which Amnesty International found he was denied basic legal protections [10]. Mohammad Taghavi and Akbar Daneshvarkar, members of the PMOI opposition group, were executed on March 30, 2026, with two more executions following the next day [1]. In August 2025, six prisoners were transferred to Qezel Hesar Prison — a facility known for carrying out political executions — with death sentences for "baghi" (armed rebellion) [3].

The UN Special Rapporteur stated that "the death penalty is being used as a tool for suppressing political opposition in wartime conditions" [1]. Human Rights Watch described the situation as an "execution spree" that "continues unabated" [3].

Iran's government maintains that its judicial system operates independently and that executions are carried out in accordance with Islamic law and Iranian legal codes. It frames the death penalty as a necessary deterrent against drug trafficking, terrorism, and threats to national security. It has dismissed reports from exile-based organizations as politically motivated.

The evidence assembled by multiple independent organizations — each using different methodologies and source networks, each arriving at broadly consistent conclusions — points to a state that has made execution a central instrument of governance during a period of overlapping crises. Whether the international community possesses the tools or the will to alter that trajectory remains an open question.