Iran escalates executions and arrests amid wartime security crackdown

Iran has executed at least 21 people and arrested more than 4,000 on national security-related charges since late February, a scale of repression that rights groups say has turned wartime security enforcement into a weapon of state control. The cases have centered on alleged espionage, protesters, and people accused of links to opposition groups, with expedited proceedings that routinely lacked due process.

The United Nations human rights office said the crackdown was eroding basic rights in “harsh and brutal ways.” Volker Türk warned that Iranian people’s rights were being stripped away amid the conflict, while the pattern of arrests and executions widened across the country.

The wave intensified after Israel’s attacks on Iran began on June 13, 2025. Amnesty International said Iranian authorities arrested scores of people over accusations of “collaboration” with Israel, called for expedited trials and executions, and carried out the execution of one man on June 16, 2025. Amnesty also said at least eight men were already on death row for espionage-related accusations after unfair trials.

The killings have continued into 2026. Iranian authorities executed Ali Fahim on April 5, 2026, according to later rights-group coverage. On May 2, 2026, Naser Bakrzadeh and Yaqoub Karimpour were executed in secret at Urmia Central Prison on spying-for-Israel charges, according to Hengaw. Amnesty said four men were executed in secret on March 30 and 31, and warned that seven other protesters and dissidents were at imminent risk.

Human Rights Watch said Iran’s human rights situation spiraled further into crisis in 2025, when authorities carried out more than 2,000 executions by year’s end, the highest number of known executions since the late 1980s. The organization said the crackdown included mass and arbitrary arrests and repression under the guise of national security.

Rights groups say the broader danger is not only the number of deaths, but the way the state is using executions to chill dissent during conflict. They say politically charged cases increasingly target protesters, dissidents, ethnic minorities, and alleged spies, while torture-tainted confessions, secretive proceedings, and rushed trials leave families with little recourse and communities with growing fear.