This is the harrowing testimony of a former Iranian political prisoner and a prison guard. This prisoner endured 12 long years within the confines of Evin, Gohardasht, and the Central Prison of Tabriz during the tumultuous 2010s. It is a damning indictment of the regime that holds the unfortunate record of the highest number of state-sanctioned executions globally, surpassed only by China, a country with a population of 1.4 billion.
Official records, as reported by Iran Human Rights Monitor, paint a grim picture of the clerical dictatorship’s sanctioned executions, numbering 524 citizens since 2023. Disturbingly, Amnesty International sheds light on the execution of at least 40 women in Iran during 2023. However, it is essential to acknowledge that these figures likely fall short, as the regime shrouds its lethal activities, refusing to unveil the true extent of its actions.
Throughout its dark history, the clerical regime has used public executions as a tool to rein in a dissatisfied populace. Grappling with nationwide and provincial uprisings since the 1990s, it has systematically wielded the death penalty as a menacing deterrent, sending a chilling message to the public that transgressing the law, essentially the regime’s mechanisms of preservation, carries dire, irreversible consequences.
Amidst economic misconduct, severe discrimination, and systemic oppression, a tragic epidemic plagues millions of Iranians, especially the youth—the scourge of narcotics. Addiction to drugs not only renders lives passive but also eliminates any potential threat to the regime’s rule, positioning the clerical regime as a significant contributor to the drug influx within society.
Iran stands as a critical transit route for drugs coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Exploiting this, the regime employs the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxy militias to channel narcotics, reaping profits to compensate for its beleaguered, heavily sanctioned economy. Shockingly, drugs have become more accessible than basic necessities for countless individuals inside Iran.
While estimates of drug addicts in the country range from 3 to 6 million, the regime remains tight-lipped about official statistics on recent drug addiction rates. The crisis is undeniably severe, with opium and its derivatives, like heroin and morphine, pervasive in Iran.
The IRGC systematically exploits airports and ports to traffic tons of narcotics globally. Paradoxically, while the regime orchestrates this nefarious trade, ordinary people, often from rural areas, are sometimes caught smuggling drugs and sentenced to execution. The regime, while apprehending thousands on drug-related charges, selectively chooses when to enforce the death penalty based on the prevailing political circumstances in the country.
In the wake of the 2022 nationwide uprising that swept across Iran, the regime momentarily suspended its relentless executions, a macabre routine that has gripped the nation. However, as the protests lost some of their initial momentum, the regime wasted no time in rekindling the grim machinery of state-sanctioned killings to quell the explosive society.
A comprehensive assessment by the Iranian Resistance reveals a chilling timeline. The last reported wave of executions occurred on September 6 and 7, a mere ten days before the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, a catalyst for the widespread unrest. Subsequently, the regime hanged Rashed Baluch and Ishaq Askani, both Baluch political prisoners, on November 8, 2022, in Zahedan Central Prison. This horrifying pattern persisted, a relentless march of death unfolding week after week.
Against this dark backdrop, thousands of political prisoners and protesters, arrested during the uprising, faced a grim fate. Ayoub Rigi met his end on December 24, 2022, and Habib Chaab who was abducted in Turkey in November 2020 was executed on February 20, 2023. Hassan Abyat, languishing in imprisonment and torture for 11 agonizing years, faced execution on the same fateful day as protests continued to reverberate throughout the country.
On March 18, 2023, the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran reported the execution of a Kurdish political prisoner from Oshnavieh, carried out by the regime’s henchmen in Urmia central prison. The NCRI Secretariat issued a statement, revealing a total of 73 executions recorded between February 20 and March 17, 2023, underscoring the magnitude of this ruthless onslaught.
Public disclosures shed light on the plight of some protesters who faced execution. Mohsen Shekari (December 8, 2022), Majidreza Rahnavard (December 12, 2023), Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini and Mohammad Mehdi Karami (January 7, 2022), and Saleh Mirhashmi, Majid Kazemi, and Saeed Yaqoubi (May 19, 2023), all became victims of the regime’s merciless vendetta.
Human rights organizations, notably Amnesty International, have painstakingly compiled extensive lists of Iranian protesters and political prisoners currently awaiting their grim fate on death row. The regime’s insatiable thirst for blood is also proving to be its vulnerability. International campaigns, coupled with designations and sanctions against regime officials, have sown seeds of doubt within the regime’s decision-making echelons.
If the world is to rise beyond hollow words and prayers, preserving fundamental values of freedom, expression, belief, and thought, it must take a resolute stance. Diplomatic and economic relations with Iran must be predicated on the regime’s unconditional abolition of the death penalty.
_____________________________________________________________________
Home | Twitter/X | Facebook | Telegram | Contact us
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde