Political prisoners in Iran are being executed amid the country’s military confrontation with Israel, while others accused of spying for Israel are facing greater risk of capital punishment, according to human rights organizations monitoring the situation.
Esmail Fekri, a prisoner convicted of spying for Israel, was executed on June 16 after spending two years on death row, according to the state-affiliated Mizan News Agency. Fekri was accused of being in contact with agents from Israel’s intelligence service Mossad.
“Esmail Fekri’s trial lasted ten minutes before Judge Iman Afshari issued his death sentence at Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court. It was upheld by Branch 39 of the Supreme Court,” A June 16 statement by the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization (IHRNGO) said. “Esmail was accused of spying and providing secret nuclear, missile and naval information to Israel. They threatened to arrest his family to extract the confession under interrogations, which he later denied in court.”
The Islamic Republic executed Pedram Madani on May 28 and Mohsen Langarneshin on April 30, on charges of espionage for Israel.
Meanwhile, at least four prisoners have been killed and a total of 20 detainees injured by security officials in Kermanshah’s Dizel-Abad prison on June 16 following riots in the jail, according to Shiva Mahbobi, the spokesperson for the Campaign to Free Political Prisoners In Iran (CFPPI).
The riots and the ensuing brutal crackdown on prisoners followed an Israeli attack on a nearby military facility which caused damage to the missile base and parts of Farabi Hospital in western Kermanshah leaving several patients injured. Activists contacted prisoners to warn them about the imminent attack, causing widespread panic in the jail.
“While evacuation orders were given to residents in the area before the Israeli strike on the military site there, the prisoners remained in the prison,” Mahbobi told Kayhan Life. “They understandably wanted to get out, and so they rioted, which led to security forces attacking the inmates.”
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Mahbobi is a former political prisoner and human rights campaigner who was first arrested at the age of 12 for demonstrating against the closure of her school. She was detained and then released after six days. Mahbobi was arrested again when she was 16-years-old during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, and was sentenced to three and a half years in Dizel-Abad prison for handing out flyers and writing anti-regime slogans on walls. Mahbobi was tortured while in prison, and witnessed several of her friends being executed.
“I was in solitary confinement and when the sirens sounded and the walls were shaking, all the guards were hiding in shelters and we weren’t allowed to, which is part of a pattern,” Mahbobi said. “I could hear the Iraqi planes overhead, and the walls of the prison were hit by rockets, but we weren’t allowed to leave. We were locked in. So I know how these people feel in prison during war time.”
Concerns about the treatment of political prisoners were raised by CFPPI in a June 15 statement.
“This is the most dangerous moment for political prisoners in Iran in decades. They are being isolated, and left completely unprotected as the regime lashes out in desperation,” the statement said. “Every hour that passes increases the risk to their lives.”
“Inside the notorious Evin Prison, particularly Ward 8, authorities have cut off all phone communications, severing the prisoners’ only link to the outside world,” the statement went on. “CFPPI has received credible reports that the Women’s Ward of Evin Prison remains under total communication blackout. Families are left in agonizing uncertainty, while prisoners are isolated and exposed in an atmosphere of fear and war.”
Israel launched Operation Rising Lion against Iran on June 13, after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Iran’s government was close to making several nuclear bombs. The military operation, which is likely to go on for several weeks, has so far targeted key nuclear, military and state media facilities. At least 224 people in Iran were killed after several missiles struck residential buildings, according to state media.
The strikes have also targeted and killed several high ranking military officials including the head of the Islamic Republic’s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Hossein Salami; the majority of the IRGC’s air force leaders; Ali Shamkhani, a close aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; six nuclear scientists; and Ali Shadmani, Iran’s new wartime chief of staff. Iran has responded with its own military strikes against Israel. At least 24 people were killed by Iranian missiles which struck residential areas, according to Israeli officials.
Mahbobi said the women in Evin Prison were frightened.
“Sources have told us that the situation inside Evin prison is very bad. The women prisoners cannot sleep, they keep their clothes on at night so that they are ready should anything happen,” Mahbobi said. “None of the prisoners have been transported to shelters, their communication with the outside world has been cut except for one or two occasions when callers got through and told them what had been happening.”
“The regime is concerned about people coming and attacking prisons once they see how vulnerable their relatives are in jail,” Mahbobi added.
Other human rights organizations have raised concerns about the treatment of political prisoners in Iran, particularly those accused of espionage for Israel.
A June 13 statement by IHRNGO said detainees accused of spying for Israel were at greater risk of execution as tensions mounted between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel.
“Iran’s authorities have intensified the issuance, confirmation and implementation of death sentences against individuals accused of spying for Israel in recent months,” the statement said. “Those accused of espionage are sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court without access to their chosen lawyer, in an unfair, non-transparent process, and based on the orders of security institutions.”
The Islamic Republic is currently the world’s most prolific executioner of children, women and men. Human rights experts say the state uses execution as a form of oppression to quash dissent and instill fear in the general population. Legal experts have also questioned the validity of the charges brought against political prisoners in recent years, who are routinely denied independent legal representation and access to trial documents.
At least nine men accused of spying for Israel remain at risk of execution, including Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian dual national working at the Karolinska Institutet, a medical university near Stockholm. The other 8 men have been named by IHRNGO as: Mohammad Amin Mahdavi Shayesteh; Edris Ali; Azad Shojaei; Rasoul Ahmad Rasoul; Afshin Ghorbani-Meishani; Rouzbeh Vadi; and Naser Bekrzadeh and Shahin Vasaf, whose convictions were overturned but remain at risk following the announcement of retrials for both men.
