Amid wartime tensions with the United States and Israel, Iran is tightening internal control by carrying out a series of executions of people tied to anti-government protests.
According to the United States' Reuters and Germany's dpa on the 5th (local time), Mizan, a media outlet under Iran's judiciary, said that the death sentences for Mohammad Amin Biglari and Shahin Vahedparast, who were indicted in January in connection with anti-government protests, had been carried out. The two were reported to have been accused of working for the United States and Israel and planning large-scale violence, including attempts to attack military facilities and access armories. The sentences were carried out by hanging after the Supreme Court finalized the rulings.
Iranian authorities have recently been ratcheting up punishments for those tied to the protests. Last week, the sentence for Amir Hossein Hatami, a teenage male who was sentenced to death for allegedly taking part in anti-government protests, was also carried out, according to reports.
Amnesty International, a global human rights group, noted in a recent report that at least 11 more participants in the protests are at risk of execution. The group said they were subjected to torture and ill-treatment in custody and that guilty verdicts were handed down after unfair trials based on coerced confessions.
Separately, Iran is also continuing executions of figures linked to anti-government organizations. Mizan reported that Abolhassan Montazer and Vahid Vani-Amerian, identified as members of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), were recently executed. They were said to have been indicted on charges of planning and carrying out bombing attacks around Tehran and using rocket launchers.
The PMOI has opposed Iran's Islamic system for decades, and the Iranian government has designated it a terrorist organization and maintained a hard-line response.
Since late February, after airstrikes by the United States and Israel, Iranian authorities have further tightened their crackdown on anti-government forces as the war continues. With the mass protests in January ending in a bloody crackdown, the move is seen as aimed at preemptively blocking the possibility of additional uprisings.
Late last month, Iran's judiciary said in a statement that it would apply a "zero tolerance" policy to espionage for hostile states, terrorism, and destruction of national facilities, reaffirming that it would actively carry out executions for related crimes.
Hengaw, a Kurdish human rights group based in Norway, estimated that at least 160 executions have been carried out in Iran so far this year.