In tandem with its horrific execution spree, Iran’s regime is waging a silent, cruel war against the most vulnerable segment of society: the grieving families of political prisoners. Recently, the regime has escalated its systemic persecution by targeting the relatives of martyrs affiliated with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). These arrests are not isolated events but form a calculated campaign of terror.
Unable to break the resistance of the prisoners themselves, the desperately weakened regime is taking families hostage to exact collective punishment. Driven by a profound fear of PMOI Resistance Units, the regime is committing ongoing crimes against humanity to prevent its inevitable overthrow.
Criminalizing grief and seeking justice
On April 18, 2026, authorities arrested Akram and Azam Daneshvarkar, the sisters of martyred PMOI member Akbar Daneshvarkar, a civil engineer who was severely tortured in Evin Prison’s Ward 209 before being executed on March 30.
The sisters’ only “crime” was spending 20 days visiting Ghezel Hesar Prison, the forensics office, and the judiciary in a desperate attempt to receive their brother’s body and determine his burial site. To intimidate other families, the judiciary fabricated charges of “assembly and collusion against national security and disrupting public order” against the sisters, transferring them to Qarchak Prison. Akram Daneshvarkar, 54, was specifically targeted for her activism in the “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign, through which she fought to save her brother’s life.
Similarly, on April 4, 2026, the regime arrested 63-year-old Masoumeh Azhini, the sister of PMOI martyr Mahmoud Azhini, a victim of the 1988 massacre. Masoumeh, who was previously jailed in 2019 for seeking justice for her brother, had relocated from Tehran to the suburbs of Gorgan to escape mounting harassment. Her whereabouts remain unknown.
A broader pattern of psychological torture and hostage-taking
The Iranian regime continuously tortures PMOI families by executing their loved ones, refusing to deliver their bodies for proper burial, and then arresting mourning relatives. The circumstances surrounding PMOI martyr Babak Alipour, hanged on March 31, 2026, expose the depth of this cruelty.
More than two months prior, authorities preemptively took his family hostage, arresting his 63-year-old mother, Omolbanin Dehghan—an active participant in the “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign—alongside his 31-year-old sister Maryam, and his 40-year-old brother Roozbeh. Imprisoned and silenced, the family was deprived of a final farewell, and executioners refused to hand over Babak’s body.
The regime spares no one, not even the sick and elderly. On March 29, 2026, suppressive forces abducted Vali Zoghi-Tabar, the ailing father of imprisoned PMOI supporter Shahin Zoghi-Tabar, despite his urgent need for medical care following two recent surgeries. By jailing grieving relatives, the state hopes to prevent funerals and mourning ceremonies from sparking new uprisings.
A desperate regime terrified of resistance
This brutal hostage-taking and execution spree reflects a paralyzed regime acting out of profound vulnerability. Following the massive nationwide uprisings of December 2025 to January 2026, which brought the ruling clerics to their knees, the state survived only through the massacre of thousands of protesters.
Now, exploiting the fog of war and domestic chaos following the death of supreme leader Ali Khamenei on February 28, the mullahs are quietly moving to eliminate their adversaries. The ruling clerics are actively committing crimes against humanity to mask their terminal weakness.
The international community must move past mere verbal condemnations. Global human rights organizations, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran must take immediate, concrete, and punitive actions to hold the regime accountable, stop its crimes against humanity, and secure the unconditional release of all imprisoned political prisoners.