Almost daily since the beginning of the latest war against Iran, the Iranian regime has been carrying out a systematic execution campaign targeting prisoners of conscience, political opponents, and protesters, in what human rights organizations have described as unprecedented in decades.

Over the past 46 days, the Revolutionary Courts have issued final death sentences against 28 prisoners, including 13 individuals arrested by security forces during the protests that swept across Iran between 2025 and 2026.

As horrifying as it is, the news is neither new nor even shocking. Iran is known to be the world’s second-highest executor of death sentences after China, according to human rights organizations. Last year alone, nearly 1,500 detainees were executed in Iranian prisons.

This time, however, the death sentences appear to have entered a far more dangerous and alarming phase, as they have focused almost entirely on eliminating political detainees and no one else. It is as though the regime exploited both the state of war and the subsequent truce to settle scores with its political opponents, justifying the executions as necessary to “protect the country from the ideology of agents and traitors.”

The charges have ranged from “communicating with the enemy” to providing sensitive information about strategic locations to American and Israeli intelligence services in exchange for money, as well as high treason. Meanwhile, the head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, announced plans to accelerate the implementation of the remaining recently issued death sentences and to confiscate the detainees’ property. He described the prisoners as “soldiers of the enemy” and called for interrogation and investigation sessions to be conducted inside prisons rather than in courtrooms, as punishment for what he called their “support for war against their own country.”

Yet this is not the first time the regime has resorted to such measures. Iran’s Revolutionary Courts have long used executions as a weapon during times of crisis, seeking to impose authority domestically through displays of escalating violence. In 1988, for instance, as the regime was forced to “drink the poisoned chalice” by ending the war with Iraq, it executed nearly 5,000 political prisoners in an attempt to compensate for its moral defeat before its own people.

Beyond its domestic image, the regime is also using these executions to send a clear message abroad: any political opposition will be met with death. It categorically refuses to release political detainees, even though this decision contradicts a provision approved by the Supreme Judicial Council requiring the judiciary, in critical circumstances such as war, to adopt exceptional measures, including the conditional release of “those convicted of non-violent crimes.”

So far, all executions have been carried out following secretive sham trials and rushed interrogations that lacked even the minimum standards of a fair trial. The victims first endured a dark phase of severe torture and psychological pressure aimed at forcing them to confess to charges and crimes they had not committed, all without prior notification to their families or lawyers.

In addition, hundreds of other death sentences are awaiting implementation, including sentences against two women and three boys under the age of eighteen, while arbitrary arrest campaigns continue across the country. Since the beginning of the war, at least 40,000 people have reportedly been detained, and the judiciary has barred independent lawyers from taking on their cases.

Across Iran, from the notorious prisons of Tehran to detention centers in Marivan, Zanjan, Isfahan, Shiraz, Ahvaz, and elsewhere, prisoners are trapped between two dangers: the danger of war and the danger of the regime’s retaliation.

Israeli and American military strikes have not spared prisons either. In many Iranian cities, prisons are located near, or even inside, bases belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, exposing detainees to direct danger. During the twelve-day war last summer, Israeli aircraft targeted Evin Prison in Tehran, killing and injuring large numbers of prisoners. At the same time, the attack effectively helped the regime eliminate political opponents without paying a moral or political cost.

Even before the war, prison conditions in Iran were already infamous from both humanitarian and human rights perspectives, particularly in the three main prisons in Tehran: Evin Prison, Qezel Hesar Prison, and Fashafouyeh Prison. These facilities hold thousands of prisoners of conscience, political activists, and protesters. They are considered among the most dangerous prisons in the country due to widespread torture, deliberate killings, overcrowding, lack of drinking water, and near-total absence of sanitary conditions.

As execution campaigns intensify, reports have also circulated about prisoners being transferred to unknown locations, while prison administrations have suspended weekly family visits under the pretext of wartime conditions. As a result, fears among families of detainees have dramatically deepened, with many terrified of losing their sons and daughters forever.

Among those executed were five protesters arrested during the bloody demonstrations that preceded the war. They were accused of spying for the governments of the United States and Israel, collaborating with hostile armed groups, and conspiring against national security. Their death sentences also included the confiscation of all their property.

Another 11 prisoners were accused of killing officers and members of special forces units with bladed weapons, participating in the killing of civilians, deliberately setting fire to mosques and bases belonging to the Basij militia, and destroying public property.

Executions were also carried out against members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, led by Maryam Rajavi and based in Paris, as well as against a security detainee accused of belonging to the opposition Baloch organization Jaish al-Adl.

The committee monitoring these prisoners stated that the confessions attributed to them had been extracted under torture and threats, and that they were denied the right to defend themselves or provide any explanations.

Meanwhile, the number of prisoners facing charges punishable by death under the Iranian judiciary continues to rise daily. Among them are two Baháʼís, members of the banned religious minority, who, according to their families, are being subjected to physical and psychological torture to force confessions to undocumented crimes. Others have been accused of “waging war against God” (moharebeh), a charge punishable by execution under Iranian law.

It is almost certain that the real number of political opponents who have been executed, or who are awaiting the same fate, is far higher than the figures currently circulating. Internet shutdowns, the secretive nature of the executions, and the intimidation of families have all created obstacles that make obtaining complete information nearly impossible.

At the same time, Iranian human rights organizations report that in the period between the January protests and the beginning of the second war, independent lawyers faced severe difficulties accessing the files of those sentenced to death. In many cases, they were barred from entering courtrooms altogether.

Pro-regime lawyers even filed lawsuits against attorneys Amir Raisian and Milad Panahipour, accusing them of spreading false information regarding the case of one of the protesters and of signing a protest statement criticizing the handling of trials involving detainees from the recent demonstrations. The charges led to their arrest and appearance before the Revolutionary Court, before they were later released on bail.

Meanwhile, 49 lawyers signed a statement protesting the violations committed against detained protesters, including forcing confessions under pressure, denying them the right to defend themselves, and preventing lawyers from accessing their clients. The signatories described these practices as violent treatment that violates criminal procedure law, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and fair trial standards.

In a related development, prison authorities transferred Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights activist Narges Mohammadi to a hospital two days ago after her health deteriorated to a life-threatening stage. Her brother, Hamid Reza Mohammadi, said that he “fears her inevitable death,” explaining that she suffers from heart and arterial diseases and that prison authorities were fully aware of her condition but deliberately delayed her treatment.

He added that political prisoners in Iran are subjected to deliberate neglect by the judicial system, arguing that “the regime has decided to let them die in prison.” According to him, “unknown prisoners are executed, while internationally recognized prisoners are held in conditions designed to lead to their silent deaths, after being denied the medical care they need.”

There is no doubt that the war unfolding in the Gulf between Iran and its enemies has diverted attention away from the plight of Iranian political prisoners and their unjust death sentences. While the world remains preoccupied with the game of opening and closing the Strait of Hormuz, and pressures mount over oil flows and global markets, an Iranian citizen loses their life every day in the darkness of prison cells, without anyone paying attention to their tragedy.

Oil, it seems, is more valuable than human life.