Rights groups fear hundreds to be put to death in coming days

Iran hangs another young man as regime steps up executions of protesters under cover of war

Ali Fahim, 23, is hanged for alleged attack on Basij base during January protests, in the regime’s 10th execution of political prisoners in 8 days, according to human rights groups

Iran on Monday hanged a man convicted in connection with nationwide protests in January. Early morning executions have become near-daily events under the cover of the war against Israel and the United States.

Most of those executed are young men, including teens, alleged to have been either involved in the protests that were brutally suppressed by the regime — with thousands shot dead in the streets — or members of banned opposition groups.

Undeterred by the war, the Islamic Republic continues to exact its revenge, and exiled opposition groups and rights organizations said they feared that hundreds more could be executed in the coming days.

Ali Fahim, 23, was hanged Monday after being found guilty of involvement in an attack on a Tehran base of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Basij militia during the protests, according to rights groups who have followed the case.

The judiciary’s Mizan Online website described him as “one of the enemy elements in the terrorist riots,” and said he was hanged after the supreme court approved the original verdict.

Seven men, including Fahim, were sentenced to death in February over the incident.

Four, including two teenagers, have now been executed, leaving the three others at imminent risk of execution, according to rights groups.

After an initial pause in executions after the war broke out on February 28, Iranian authorities have in the last eight days alone put to death 10 “political prisoners,” said the Norway-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR).

In this period, four people were hanged over the protests, while another six were executed on charges of membership in the outlawed People’s Mujahedin (MEK) opposition group.

IHR said Fahim and his co-defendants were “subjected to torture and denied access to legal counsel,” and were sentenced to death in a “grossly unfair” fast-track trial presided over by Judge Abolqasem Salavati.

Salavati was sanctioned in 2019 by the United States, which said he was known as the “judge of death” for his frequent use of capital punishment.

“These executions are part of the Islamic republic’s strategy of survival — waging war against its own people under the shadow of external conflict,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

“The international community must respond with urgency. The situation of prisoners and the regime’s systematic use of the death penalty must be made a central condition in any negotiations or engagement with the Islamic Republic,” he added.

‘Zionist agents’

In a bid to portray the protests as being instigated by Iran’s enemies, instead of a popular uprising, those convicted have frequently been accused of working for Israel or the US.

Mizan said Fahim was convicted of working against Iran on behalf of “the Zionist regime and the United States,” as well as breaking into a classified military site to seize weapons.

The nationwide demonstrations were met with a brutal crackdown by the authorities that rights groups say left thousands of people dead.

Iran on Sunday executed two men — Mohammad-Amin Biglari, 19, and Shahin Vahedparast, 30 — and on Thursday hanged Amir Hossein Hatami, 18, all of whom were convicted in the same case. Their executions were confirmed by the Iranian judiciary, and their ages given by rights groups.

According to the UK’s Daily Mail, the three were among 25 young men who were “at risk” of execution after being arrested in January.

“These daily executions, carried out under the shadow of war, are part of a deliberate policy to terrorize the Iranian people and prevent new protests,” Amiry-Moghaddam told the British paper.

“The Islamic Republic’s main threat is not foreign bombs; it is the Iranian people demanding fundamental change,” he said. “We fear for the lives of political prisoners and hundreds of detained protesters in the coming days and weeks.”

Amnesty International has given a similar description of Iran’s motives, saying that these executions have shown the judiciary to be “a tool of repression sending individuals to the gallows to spread fear and exacting revenge on those demanding fundamental political change.”

The executions took place during Iran’s war with Israel and the United States, which erupted on February 28 with strikes that killed the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Iran on March 19 also executed three men accused of killing police officers during the protests in January, in the first hangings Iran carried out related to the demonstrations.