In a transparent act of retaliation, the Iranian regime has ordered the forced exile of Saeed Masouri, one of Iran’s longest-serving political prisoners, to the notoriously brutal Zahedan prison. The decision, announced on Saturday, July 19, by authorities in Ghezel Hesar prison, comes just three days after a failed attempt by security forces to abduct him was met with fierce resistance from his fellow inmates.
This is not a routine prison transfer. It is a calculated escalation in the regime’s war against organized dissent and a desperate attempt to break a symbol of unwavering defiance. Masouri, a supporter of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), has been imprisoned for 25 years without a single day of furlough. His exile is the latest proof that as popular unrest grows, the clerical regime is intensifying its reign of terror inside its dungeons, targeting the very prisoners who inspire the nation’s resistance.
A calculated plot to silence dissent and pave the way for more killings
The regime’s motives are clear. Masouri’s exile is a direct attack on the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign, a powerful movement of civil disobedience that has continued for over a year and a half across 48 of the country’s prisons. The initial attempt to seize Masouri on Wednesday, July 16, took place immediately after the 77th week of the campaign’s hunger strike, revealing the regime’s fury at the prisoners’ organized protest against its killing machine.
In a powerful message from prison on July 17, Masouri himself exposed the regime’s sinister plan. He warned that these “abductions in the name of transfer” are not about him alone but are a strategy to “control, isolate, and silence prisoners, and to insist on more killings and executions! Just as what happened in 1988.” His chilling reference to the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, the vast majority of whom were PMOI members, is an urgent alarm bell that the regime is preparing the ground for another crime against humanity.
This is part of a systematic campaign by the Ministry of Intelligence to eliminate key resistance figures, following the recent abductions of PMOI-affiliated prisoners Mehdi Hasani, Behrouz Ehsani, and Ali and Miryousef Younesi.
A chorus of defiance from Iran’s dungeons
Despite the regime’s brutal tactics, its efforts have been met with a remarkable wave of solidarity and defiance from within the prison walls. The initial attempt to forcibly remove Masouri on July 16 was thwarted only when his fellow inmates rose up in a “courageous and collective resistance,” forcing the prison guards to temporarily retreat.
This spirit of defiance has spread. In a bold statement, PMOI-supporting political prisoners in Fashafuyeh prison condemned the plot, declaring, “We now see ourselves alongside our captive comrades in Ghezel Hesar and take their steadfastness as a model… We consider these actions the reaction of a helpless and repressive regime taking revenge for its defeats against the Iranian people and, foremost, its political prisoners.”
The most powerful message came from a group of female PMOI supporters imprisoned in the notorious Qarchak prison. In a statement condemning Masouri’s impending exile and calling on international human rights bodies to intervene, they sent a resounding message to the clerical regime: “Woe betide if such repression causes resistant political prisoners to take a single step back on the path of freedom! We remind the regime: you cannot ‘exile’ the great resistance that has taken root throughout the country and its prisons with the blood of martyrs and the suffering of captives! You are pounding water in a mortar!”
An urgent call to prevent another state-sanctioned crime
In his message from prison, Saeed Masouri vowed he would never “take a step back in this path of freedom and nobility.” His courage, and that of his fellow prisoners, places a grave responsibility on the shoulders of the international community.
Human rights organizations have been clear: any harm that befalls Saeed Masouri will be considered an extrajudicial killing, and the responsibility lies squarely with the judicial and security authorities of the ruling dictatorship, under the direct command of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The world must heed the prisoners’ alarm that a “crime is in progress.” Global bodies, UN Special Rapporteurs, and democratic governments must move beyond condemnation and take concrete political action. They must hold the Iranian regime accountable for its systematic human rights violations and send an unequivocal message that it cannot get away with murder. The life of Saeed Masouri and all political prisoners in Iran is a red line.