Iran has unleashed one of its deadliest waves of executions in more than a decade, as human rights groups warn that the death penalty is being used to silence dissent and instill fear.
Activists say the surge reflects a deliberate campaign by Tehran to tighten control amid internal unrest and external pressures.
The charges remain unchanged: terrorism, membership in armed opposition groups, drug trafficking, and collaboration or espionage for a foreign state.
Data from the Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights show that Iran has carried out 1,116 executions since Jan. 1, 2025, while Hengaw, a human rights organization based in Norway, reports 187 in September alone.
“The regime in Iran uses capital punishment as a tool to intimidate people and deter them from joining protests, especially when it feels threatened at home or abroad,” said Jila Mostajer, a board member of Hengaw, in an interview with Alhurra.
“During the war with Israel, the judiciary announced that detainees would be punished as quickly as possible. The regime executed former prisoners accused of links to Israel on the third day of the war,” she added.
The Execution of Babak Shahbazi
On Sept. 17, Iranian authorities executed political activist Babak Shahbazi after accusing him of spying for Israel.
Alhurra attempted to reach Shahbazi’s family in Iran but was unable to do so due to the strict surveillance imposed on families of executed prisoners. Instead, the network spoke with “Afshin,” a pseudonym for one of Shahbazi’s close friends.
Afshin said his friend worked as a contractor installing heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems for a company affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and was arrested in early 2024 at his son’s school in Tehran.
He added that “authorities charged Babak with collaborating with a hostile government, referring to Israel, through another individual linked to it.”
According to Iranian state media, Shahbazi allegedly worked with Esmail Fekri, another man executed in June on charges of spying for Israel. The indictment accused Shahbazi of “intelligence and security cooperation with Israel” and of using his work as a contractor to gather information from sensitive military and security sites.
Afshin denied knowing of any contact between Babak and political or intelligence entities abroad.
Human rights organizations said Shahbazi was detained for writing a letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, offering to help fight Russia. They report that he was denied legal representation and tortured during detention.
“Shahbazi’s family couldn’t visit him for about seven months,” Afshin said. “He was held in solitary confinement, then placed with an ISIS prisoner who tried to strangle him, but he survived.”
A week after the execution, Shahbazi’s body was handed over to his family for burial, but authorities prohibited them from holding a funeral, Afshin said.
A Thousand Executions in Nine Months
At the end of September, Amnesty International reported that Iranian authorities had carried out more than 1,000 executions during the first nine months of 2025.
The organization urged Tehran to halt all executions and called on other governments to press for an end to the practice.
Such appeals have long fallen on deaf ears in Tehran.
Maryam Hosseini, who lives in Europe, said she learned through news websites that Iranian authorities had executed her father, political activist Mehdi Hosseini, in July.
“My father was arrested in September 2022, just days before the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ uprising began,” she told Alhurra.
“Authorities accused him of belonging to the opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, spreading corruption on earth, and armed rebellion. He was brutally tortured for more than two and a half years, moved between Evin, Ghezel Hesar, and Greater Tehran prisons, and then sentenced to death without a trial.”
Hosseini said the authorities denied her father the right to a lawyer, prevented contact with his family, and never informed them of the date or location of his execution and burial.
Another Iranian, Hamid Hosseinnejad, was executed secretly in April. His family was notified of his death but never received his body, according to Karim Rezaei, a relative who spoke to Alhurra.
“Hamid worked as a porter near the Iran-Turkey border before being arrested in 2023 on politically motivated security charges,” Rezaei said.
He added that “authorities accused him of killing eight Iranian border guards without presenting any evidence. The charge was completely fabricated. His family provided proof of his innocence, but it was ignored.”
“The authorities executed Hamid in secret,” Rezaei continued. “Afterward, his family received a call from the Revolutionary Court in Urmia informing them of the execution and telling them to stay quiet and not hold a funeral.”
Execution of Six Ahwazi Arabs and a Kurd
On Sept. 4, Iranian authorities executed seven prisoners, six Ahwazi Arabs and one Kurd, accusing them of carrying out armed attacks, joining militant groups, and spying for Israel and the West.
The Hana Human Rights Organization, a Canada-based group that monitors abuses in Iran, told Alhurra that “the executed Ahwazi prisoners were forced during their 2022 detention to confess to receiving foreign bank transfers, carrying out armed attacks, cooperating with Israel, and belonging to the Arab Struggle Movement in Ahwaz.”
Their families repeatedly said those confessions were extracted under torture, the group added. Hana said the executed Kurdish political activist was Saman Mohammadi Khayara, who was arrested by IRGC intelligence in 2013 on charges of fighting and belonging to armed groups linked to foreign intelligence services.
The group said he was tortured into confessing, and that confession became the basis for his death sentence.
As executions continue across Iran, Jino, a Kurdish-Iranian activist and daughter of detainee Rezgar Bikzadeh Babamiri, said she fears for her father’s life.
Babamiri was sentenced to death after being arrested in April 2023 in the city of Bukan for assisting protesters and treating the wounded during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” demonstrations, she told Alhurra.
“My father and five other prisoners in the same case still face execution on 12 charges,” Jino said. “One of them managed to flee the country while on medical leave, but my father and the other four remain at imminent risk.”
Babamiri and the others were accused of spying for Israel, a charge that, according to Jino, is meant to spread fear among regime critics and silence dissent.
She said her father was denied a fair trial and tortured in prison.
“He was targeted because he is Kurdish,” she said. “His case reflects the wider use of executions as a political weapon against minorities and activists in Iran.”
Jino believes the surge in executions is “a direct challenge to the world.”
“It’s as if the regime is testing the international community’s resolve, seeing how far it can go without consequences,” she said.
Dalshad Hussein
