Parallel to its warmongering in the region, Iran’s regime continues to ratchet up human rights abuses in its prisons, especially against political prisoners.
The regime finished 2023 with at least 864 executions, up 34% in comparison to the previous year. The victims included 26 women and eight juvenile offenders who were under 18 at the time of committing the crime. Seven executions were carried out in a shocking public manner. The brutal killing spree reached a climax with 30 executions carried out in the final five days of the year. Executions have seen an alarming uptick since the outbreak of war in Gaza, which the regime has used as a smoke screen for its human rights abuses.
And the beginning of the new year has shown no respite in this trend of barbaric behavior. In the first week of 2024, Iranian authorities executed at least 16 prisoners, and it carried out six executions on January 14 alone. Regime officials are already making threatening remarks pertaining to taking revenge on the population. On January 10, Tasnim News Agency quoted Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the head of the regime’s judiciary, as saying, “Today, the sword of justice must go hand in hand with preaching… (not only) the judicial and security apparatus must certainly be together; but, there is no other way in some places.”
The regime has also ratcheted up political executions. On January 2, regime authorities in Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj executed political prisoner Davood Abdollahi. Abdollahi, a Sunni Kurd hailing from Mahabad, had been in prison for 14 years and was executed while being on a hunger strike for six days.
Ghassem Abesteh, another prisoner from the same group, was executed on November 5 and Ayoub Karimi was hanged on November 29. The four remaining prisoners are under the threat of being executed.
At least 10 other political prisoners are awaiting executions.
At the same time, the regime is raising pressure on other political prisoners and rights activists. The most recent case is the three-year extension of the prison sentence of political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared. She was slated to be released this year after completing her 15-year sentence, which she has endured without any furlough. But the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence fabricated two new dossiers against her to prevent her release.
In another unjust verdict, the regime’s Revolutionary Court in Amol sentenced Farzaneh Barzekar to 24 months in prison. Barzekar is the mother of Erfan Rezaii, a youth who was murdered by regime security forces during the 2022 nationwide uprising. The regime’s court charged her with “insulting” regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei and disseminating “propaganda against the state” because she had raised her voice in protest to the killing of her son.
And the regime’s judiciary has sentenced political prisoner Mir Yousef Younesi to five years in prison. Mir Yousef Younesi is the father of Ali Younesi, a student of the Sharif University of Technology, who has been in prison since April 2020 on political charges.
Regime security forces arrested Mir Younes Yousef in January 2023 in Shahrud. He had previously served three years in prison during the shah dictatorship and nine years during the rule of the mullahs. He is 70 years old and is suffering from ear and abdominal diseases but has been denied access to vital medical care.
The regime is also ratcheting up the use of violent and medieval punishments.
On January 6, the regime carried out the flogging sentence of Roya Heshmati, 33, on charges of violating the regime’s misogynistic hijab rules. Heshmati, 33, was sentenced to 74 lashes and fined 12.5 million rials.
The judiciary attempted to justify its inhumane practices by accusing Heshmati of allegedly promoting and sanctioning unlawful activities and engaging in “organized action in return for receiving some money from abroad.”
In another brutal act, the regime amputated the hands of two individuals on theft charges. The news was confirmed by Ali Mozaffari, the chief justice of Qom province, on January 7. This barbaric punishment was carried out while the leaders of the regime and the commanders of the Revolutionary Guard are embezzling billions of dollars of country’s wealth or wasting them on repression, nuclear activities, warmongering, and sponsoring terrorism to preserve the regime.