In the span of five days, the Islamic Republic of Iran executed at least six political prisoners across two prisons. Their names were Mehrab Abdollahzadeh, Naser Bakerzadeh, Yaghoub Karimpour, Mehdi Rasouli, Mohammadreza Miri, and Ebrahim Dolatabadi.
Three of them were Kurd. Two; Rasouli and Miri, both 21-year-old workers, had been arrested during the January 2026 protests. One was a father of two. None of their families or lawyers were notified in advance.
Between March 17 and April 27, 2026, at least 22 political prisoners were hanged in Iran, roughly one every two days. The six executions of May 2–4 bring the confirmed total to at least 28 political prisoners executed in under seven weeks.
Across all six May cases, the same pattern of abuse is evident. Confessions were extracted under torture and severe beatings, then used as primary evidence at trial. Defendants were denied access to independent legal counsel during detention and, in several cases, at trial itself.
Proceedings were conducted before Revolutionary Courts, which operate without transparency and provide no meaningful right of appeal.
The charges; moharebeh (“waging war against God”), efsad-fil-arz (“corruption on earth”), and alleged cooperation with Mossad, function as broad, catch-all capital offenses that can be applied to virtually any form of dissent.
After the executions, authorities refused to return the bodies to families. In some cases, relatives report being pressured into silence by security agencies, with false assurances that cooperation might lead to reduced sentences.
“The speed of these proceedings was itself a form of violence. In Bakerzadeh’s case, the Supreme Court upheld his death sentence just ten days before his execution. In other cases, lawyers were physically prevented from accessing case files or entering prosecutors’ offices. These were not trials; they were predetermined outcomes in search of justification,” said Ardeshir Zarezadeh, ICHR President.
The world must act to stop political prisoners’ executions in Iran.