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.

RELATED | Iran: Growing fears over torture and executions of individuals accused of ‘espionage’ for Israel

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

Comments

Arizona | Man who murdered pastor crucifixion style requests plea deal after parents killed in plane crash

Adam Sheafe, the California man who admitted to killing a New River, Arizona, pastor in a crucifixion-style attack, has asked prosecutors to offer him a plea deal that would result in a natural life sentence rather than the death penalty he had previously sought. Advisory council attorneys representing Sheafe sent a formal plea offer to prosecutors this week, about two weeks after his father and stepmother died in a plane crash at Marana Airport on April 8, according to 12 News. Sheafe, 51, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of William Schonemann, 76, pastor of New River Bible Church, who was found dead inside his home last April.

US Department of Justice announces decision to resume federal executions

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Friday that it will resume the federal use of capital punishment and that it is seeking death sentences against 44 defendants. DOJ also said that it will use firing squads, electrocution, or nitrogen asphyxiation if the drug used in lethal injection is unavailable. The announcement follows the Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty report, published on April 24. The report is especially critical of the moratorium on federal executions, ordered by Attorney General Merrick Garland in July 2021, to remain until the death penalty could be conducted “fairly and humanely.” Garland was concerned about the federal lethal injection protocol, which uses only one drug, pentobarbital, and the possibility that it causes “unnecessary pain and suffering.” In response to Garland’s moratorium and concerns, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 prisoners on federal death row, leaving only three prisoners.

China | Man sentenced to death for murder executed in Yunnan

Tian Yongming, who was initially sentenced for a series of violent crimes and then had his sentence changed to death early this year, has been executed in Yunnan province following approval from China's top court. The execution was carried out by the Intermediate People's Court in Yuxi, Yunnan, on Tuesday, with local prosecutors supervising the process. Before the execution, Tian was allowed to meet with his family members. The case dates back to September 1996, when Tian was sentenced to nine years in prison for the rape and attempted murder of his sister-in-law. After his release on July 15, 2002, he plotted revenge against the woman. On the night of Nov 13, 2002, he broke into her home armed with a knife.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Florida executes Chadwick Scott Willacy

STARKE, Fla. -- A Florida man who set his neighbor on fire after she returned from work to find him burglarizing her home was executed Tuesday evening. Chadwick Scott Willacy, 58, received a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke for the 1990 killing of Marlys Sather. It was Florida's fifth execution this year. The curtain to the execution chamber went up promptly at the scheduled 6 p.m. time, and the lethal injection got underway two minutes later, after Willacy made a brief statement.

Iran to execute first woman linked to mass protests after ‘forced confessions’

Bita Hemmati and three others have been sentenced to death for 'collusion' and 'propaganda.' Advocates claim the charges are baseless, citing a secretive process and state-televised interrogations. Iranian authorities are preparing to execute Bita Hemmati, the first woman sentenced to death in connection with the mass protests in Tehran in late December and January, according to the US-based non-profit the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Judge Iman Afshari, of Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, sentenced Hemmati, her husband, Mohammadreza Majidi Asl, and Behrouz Zamaninezhad, and Kourosh Zamaninezhad to death on the charge of “operational action for the hostile government of the United States and hostile groups,” in addition to discretionary imprisonment period of five years on the charge of “assembly and collusion against national security.”

Tennessee | Man set to be executed files motion claiming DNA evidence will exonerate him

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Attorneys for death row inmate Tony Carruthers filed a motion in Shelby County Criminal Court seeking immediate DNA testing on evidence they claim will prove his innocence in a 1994 triple murder. Carruthers is scheduled for execution on May 12. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murders of 24-year-old Marcellos Anderson, 17-year-old Delois Anderson, and 21-year-old Frederick Scarborough. Prosecutors at trial alleged the victims were buried alive in a Memphis cemetery as part of a drug-related robbery.

Florida Schedules Two Executions for Late April

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis has directed the Florida Department of Corrections to move forward with two executions scheduled for late April 2026, marking a significant ramp-up in the state's use of capital punishment. The scheduled deaths of Chadwick Willacy and James Ernest Hitchcock follow a series of landmark judicial rulings that have kept both men on death row for decades.

Singapore executes man for trafficking 1kg of cannabis

SINGAPORE — Singaporean authorities executed Omar bin Yacob Bamadhaj at Changi Prison on Thursday, April 16, 2026, following his 2019 conviction for importing 1,009.1 grams of cannabis. Bamadhaj, 41, though some reports have cited his age as 46, was arrested on July 12, 2018, during a routine search at the Woodlands Checkpoint. Officers discovered the narcotics wrapped in plastic and hidden within his vehicle as he attempted to enter Singapore from Malaysia. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, the threshold for the mandatory death penalty involving cannabis is 500 grams, a limit this shipment exceeded by more than double.

Florida | Man avoids death penalty in Daytona Beach triple murder

Jerome Anderson shot and killed Antoine Melvin, 42, John Burch, 65, and Patrick Lassiter, 35, in 2023. A man pleaded no contest to a triple-murder in Daytona Beach and was sentenced April 20 to three consecutive life terms in prison as part of a plea deal in which he avoided a possible death sentence. Jerome Anderson, 41, was indicted on three counts of first-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in the 2023 triple-slaying. Anderson pleaded no contest to the three first-degree murder charges April 20 and, in exchange, Assistant State Attorney Andrew Urbanak agreed not to continue to pursue the death penalty.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog