Political Prisoners Speak Out Against Post-War Crackdown

Three political prisoners detained in Evin Prison have issued a joint statement condemning the recent wave of executions and widespread arrests in Iran. They accused the Islamic Republic of using the aftermath of the 12-day war to intensify domestic suppression and attempting to rebuild its “lost authority” by executing protesters.

Abolfazl Ghadyani, Reza Valizadeh, and Mohammad Najafi stated that the surge in executions and arrests reflects the regime’s efforts to compensate for its political and military setbacks.

The signatories wrote: “The corrupt system of the Islamic Republic has once again turned war into a license to kill citizens. Whatever crumbled its illusory authority on the battlefield, it now attempts to rebuild on the gallows.”

Referring to the sentences handed down against demonstrators, they emphasized:

“Executing protesters through show trials is not the implementation of justice; it is begging for authority along a path of blood.”

In another section of the statement, the political prisoners accused the regime of directing its frustration toward Iranian citizens after failing to respond effectively to the United States and Israel: “The regime seeks to exact revenge on defenseless and innocent citizens for what it cannot inflict on the United States and Israel.”

The three political prisoners warned that the Islamic Republic is using escalating executions and mass arrests to spread fear and extinguish all forms of protest. They stated that the government uses wartime conditions as a cover for state violence so that “the slaughter of protesters is less seen and heard.”

The statement also targeted Mojtaba Khamenei, holding him responsible for the continuation of repressive policies. The authors noted that, instead of managing economic and social crises, the regime relies on the “trinity of execution, suppression, and imprisonment” to maintain control over society.

Concluding their message, the signatories condemned the wave of executions, widespread detentions, and what they called an “organized project of suppression,” warning:

“No regime will ever achieve security or legitimacy through the accumulation of corpses and a factory line of terror.”

Reza Valizadeh, one of the signatories, is an Iranian-American journalist and former Radio Farda reporter who was arrested in October 2024 after returning to Iran in February 2024.

The statement comes amid a rising number of execution sentences tied to protest cases in recent weeks. At dawn on July 27, Abolfazl Sepahi Badjani, 23, and Amirhossein Safari Hosseinabadi, 28, two detainees from the December 2025–January 2026 protests and defendants in the “Alikhani Square” case in Isfahan, were publicly executed. Their executions brought the total number of individuals executed in connection with that case to four.

Amnesty International has condemned these executions as a clear escalation in the regime’s use of the death penalty to crush dissent, warning that at least 60 other individuals, including three who were children at the time of their arrest, remain at imminent risk of execution.