Silent Hangings Expedited During U.S. – Iran Talks

While American diplomats negotiated with Iran over a nuclear deal, Iranian authorities were quietly hanging political prisoners — one every two days.

Story Snapshot

Iran executed at least 39 political prisoners after February 2026, including protesters, dissidents, and people accused of spying for the U.S. and Israel.
Most executions happened in secret, with no warning to families or lawyers, following trials that often lasted just minutes.
Human rights groups say confessions were forced through torture, and Iran’s own judiciary fast-tracked cases under a new wartime law.
Over 600 people were executed in Iran in the first months of 2026, with political cases surging alongside U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks.

Iran Used War as Cover to Speed Up Executions

After the U.S. and Israel struck Iran on February 28, 2026, Iranian authorities arrested more than 6,000 people — protesters, journalists, lawyers, and activists. Amnesty International documented at least 39 politically motivated executions that followed. The breakdown: 16 protesters, nine dissidents, ten people accused of spying for the U.S. or Israel, and four accused of armed rebellion. Scores more remain on death row.^[22]

Iran’s judiciary didn’t hide what it was doing — it passed a law. Just before the larger conflict broke out, officials gave revolutionary courts new power to fast-track cases. On paper, the process looked legal. In practice, it meant people were tried, convicted, and hanged based on confessions extracted through torture, often without ever speaking to a lawyer.^[22] One human rights expert told DW News that the regime was “following the law — the law that they passed right before the bigger war.”

Five-Minute Trials, Two Years Without a Lawyer

The case of Behrouz Ehsani and Mehdi Hassani became a symbol of how broken the process was. A coalition of 365 people — including United Nations experts, Nobel laureates, and former judges — signed a joint statement demanding the U.N. intervene. Their reason: both men had been convicted in a five-minute trial and denied legal counsel for nearly two years.^[6] They were secretly executed on July 27, 2025, with no notice to their families or attorneys.^[4]

Political prisoner Erfan Shakourzadeh was executed on May 11, 2026. Iran’s judiciary-linked Mizan news agency said he cooperated with U.S. intelligence and Israel’s Mossad. Rights groups called the charge a pretext. His case fit a pattern Iran Human Rights Monitor had been tracking since March 2026 — at least 31 documented political executions in just weeks, most carried out at Qezel Hesar Prison.^[5]^[19]

The Numbers Tell a Story Iran Doesn’t Want Told

Iran executed at least 975 people in 2024 — the highest number in more than two decades. Less than 10 percent of those executions were officially announced.^[2] In the first four months of 2025 alone, executions jumped 75 percent compared to the same period in 2024, hitting at least 343 total. In April 2025, 110 people were executed in a single month.^[6] By early 2026, NPR reported over 600 executions for the year — and it wasn’t even summer.^[23]

"3,000 global leaders have raised their voice: Stop executions in Iran!
This is the conscience of the world speaking against the mullahs’ killing machine.
We will not stop until every political prisoner is free and this regime is gone.
#StopExecutionsInIran #100kFreeIranRally

— RashidEbrahim (@rashidebrahim26) June 16, 2026

Iran calls these executions lawful. Some carry charges like “enmity against God” or “corruption on earth” — broad labels that Iranian revolutionary courts have long used to target dissent.^[7] The U.N. Human Rights Council heard in June 2025 that the 975 executions in 2024 were the most since 2015, with three percent tied to security charges.^[8] That may sound small, but three percent of 975 is nearly 30 people — most of them political opponents of the regime.

Executions as a Diplomatic Signal — Or a Warning

The timing raises a hard question. Iran was engaged in ceasefire talks with the U.S. while simultaneously accelerating the killing of people it labeled American or Israeli spies. Whether that was a show of strength, a domestic crackdown using war as cover, or both, the result was the same: political prisoners died while diplomats talked. Advocacy groups told NPR the executions were part of a deliberate push to crush dissent while international attention was focused elsewhere.^[23]

The BBC confirmed the United Nations verified at least 32 political executions since the February 2026 attack.^[25] Amnesty International documented torture methods used on detainees before trial — mock hangings, beatings, prolonged isolation, and denial of food and medical care.^[22] These are not the conditions of a fair legal process. They are the conditions of a government that has decided the outcome before the trial begins. Any nuclear agreement that ignores this reality is a deal made with a regime that executes its own people in the dark, while negotiators shake hands in the light.