Total Executions Under Pezeshkian Presidency Nears 1,000
In a chilling surge of state violence, the Iranian regime carried out 22 executions between April 7 and 9, targeting prisoners across a wide range of cities and prisons: Mashhad, Qezelhessar, Shahroud, Gonabad, Dezful, Aligudarz, Bukan, Gonbad-e Kavus, and Kermanshah. Among those executed were five political prisoners and three women, signaling an intensification of repression by the clerical dictatorship. The total number of executions under Masoud Pezeshkian’s presidency, which began in August 2024, now stands at 995.
On April 8, five political prisoners—Farhad Shakeri, Abdolhakim Gorgij, Abdolrahman Gorgij, Taj Mohammad Khormali, and Malek Ali Fadaei—were hanged in Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad. They had been arrested by intelligence forces in 2015, tortured, and sentenced to death in what rights groups have condemned as sham trials. The Mashhad Revolutionary Court issued nine death sentences in the same case. Three executions were carried out in 2021, and despite clear procedural violations, the regime’s Supreme Court upheld the remaining six sentences in August 2024.
In 2022, these prisoners sent letters to the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran and the UN Secretary-General, describing the torture they endured, and the pressure exerted on their families. On August 9, 2024, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) appealed to the United Nations and European Union to intervene to save their lives.
Alongside the political prisoners, five other inmates, including Amir Ahmad Sani, Mohammadreza Damideh, and three women, were also executed in Vakilabad on the same day.
The executions were widespread:
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On April 7, Hamid Abdoli (Dezful), Seyed Taha Hosseini (Bukan), Shahram Goudarzi, and Taher Shabani (Aligudarz) were hanged.
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On April 9, eight more prisoners were executed:
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Qezelhessar Prison in Karaj: Bahram Hedavandkhani, Salar Amirjalali, Abolfazl Karimi, and one unnamed individual
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Kermanshah: Kambiz Fathi
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Shahroud: Gholamreza Pardakhteh
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Gonabad: Esmail Dahmardeh
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Gonbad-e Kavus: a 20-year-old youth
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Human rights monitors believe the actual number of executions may be even higher and are working to verify additional cases.
This most recent wave of executions reflects the regime’s deepening reliance on capital punishment as a means of instilling fear and suppressing dissent, particularly targeting ethnic minorities, political dissidents, and women. As both domestic unrest and international isolation grow, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s judiciary appears increasingly committed to brutal tactics in a bid to maintain control.
