Iran Intensifies Repression Under Pretext of War; Widespread Arrests and Enforced Disappearance of Political Prisoners

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 19, 2025: Since the start of Israel’s attack on Iran, according to state media, the Islamic Republic media has arrested at least 223 for charges related to collaboration with Israel. Internet access has also been severely restricted and two political prisoners, Ali Younesi and Hamid Kashani, were transferred from Evin Prison to an unknown location without notice. Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic’s judiciary and parliament have called for harsher sentences in Israel-related cases and faster implementation of those punishments.

Referring to the Islamic Republic’s history of intensifying repression and executions in wartime, Iran Human Rights expresses grave concern and calls for the international community to pay attention to the situation of citizens inside Iran. The organisation also raises concern about the lack of a transparent judicial process that will investigate and prosecute Israel-related charges, which could result in the death penalty, and warned of an intensification of repression and executions in the coming days.

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IHRNGO Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “At a time when the world’s attention is focused on the military conflict between Israel and Iran, the international community and the people, especially Iranians abroad, must not allow another human rights disaster to unfold in prisons under the shadow of war."

The mass arrests began on 14 June 2025, a day after the ongoing Israeli attack on Iran. According to IHRNGO’s monitoring of Iran state media, a wide range of charges, such as “collaborating with Israel, taking photos of sensitive locations, disturbing public opinion, creating fear and panic, disturbing public mental peace, media support for Israel, disrupting the psychological security of society, communicating with Israeli agents, spying for Mossad,” and similar cases, have been cited as reasons for these arrests.

At least 223 people have been arrested, according to official media reports. The real figures are believed to be higher.

Those accused of ties to Israel should be very swiftly tried and punished according to wartime conditions.

— Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, head of the Islamic Republic’s judiciary

The arrests have been reported in many provinces across the country, including: Yazd, Hormozgan, Kerman, Isfahan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Golestan, Tehran, Alborz, Ardabil, Fars, Mazandaran, North Khorasan, Khorasan Razavi, Lorestan, Ilam, Bushehr, West Azerbaijan, Zanjan, Qazvin, Markazi, Kermanshah and Kurdistan.

A significant number of those arrested are Afghans living in Iran. On 4 June, IHRNGO and 83 other human rights organisations and groups issued a statement calling for action to stop the increasing number of Afghan executions in Iran. As the most costless victims of the death penalty in Iran, they expressed “fear that dozens more Afghan nationals will be executed in the coming months.”

At the same time as arrests on charges of ties to Israel intensified, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, the head of the Islamic Republic’s judiciary, said in a statement that those accused of ties to Israel should be “very swiftly tried and punished according to wartime conditions.”

RELATED | A New Wave of Arbitrary Arrests in Iran

The Islamic Consultative Assembly (Parliament) also approved two urgent bills to intensify punishments for those accused of collaborating with Israel.

If the proposed law is passed, "espionage or collaboration with hostile states, including the US government," will be considered efsad-fil-arz (corruption on earth) and thus be subject to the punishment set in Article 286 of the Islamic Penal Code, namely the death penalty.

Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, June 19, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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