Human rights organisations have documented a sharp acceleration in Iran’s execution rate since the US-Iran war began on February 28, with 31 people put to death in the first 65 days of the conflict — 22 of them in cases classified as political or security-related — and a documented shortening of the interval between arrest, sentencing, and execution.
The international coverage of the US-Iran war has focused, understandably, on the Strait of Hormuz, the ceasefire negotiations, the energy markets, and the military exchanges. The story that has received far less attention is what is happening inside Iran’s judicial and detention system during the same period.
During a roughly 65-day period from the beginning of the war, 31 executions were carried out, including 22 political or security-related cases, human rights organisations have documented. In some cases, the handling of these cases has proceeded at a pace beyond usual procedures, and the interval between arrest, sentencing, and execution has decreased.
Human rights monitoring organisation HRANA — the Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran — has been tracking the cases. The acceleration in executions since February 28 follows a pattern that is consistent with how Iran’s government has historically responded to periods of acute political crisis: using national security and counter-espionage charges to move against individuals perceived as threats to the state, often with minimal legal process and maximum speed.
Iran’s Execution Record: Context and Scale
Iran is one of the world’s most prolific executors. According to Amnesty International’s annual death penalty reports, Iran consistently executes hundreds of people per year — often more than any country other than China, whose figures are treated as a state secret. In 2024, Iran executed at least 853 people, a figure that human rights organisations described as an alarming increase.
The majority of Iran’s executions have historically been drug-related. But the political and security-related execution category has grown significantly during periods of unrest or perceived national emergency — following the 2009 Green Movement protests, after the 2019 fuel price protests that killed hundreds, and during and after the 2022 Mahsa Amini movement.
The current war represents a different kind of emergency — external military conflict rather than internal protest — but the pattern of response is consistent. Periods of regime vulnerability, whether from internal dissent or external attack, have historically correlated with accelerated execution of individuals accused of espionage, collaboration with foreign powers, or “enmity against God.”
What “Political or Security-Related” Means in Iranian Law
The classification of executions as “political or security-related” does not map neatly onto the concepts those words carry in Western legal systems. Iran’s criminal code includes offences such as “moharebeh” (enmity against God), “efsad-e fel-arz” (corruption on earth), and espionage, all of which carry the death penalty and all of which have been used against political dissidents, journalists, labour activists, religious minorities, and individuals with alleged foreign contacts.
In the context of the current war, the espionage category is particularly charged. Iran has claimed throughout the conflict that foreign intelligence services — primarily American, Israeli, and British — have been conducting operations inside the country targeting military infrastructure, communications systems, and political leadership. Those claims may contain elements of truth: intelligence operations are a standard feature of any major military conflict. But they provide a legal and political framework within which Iran’s judiciary can act against a wide range of individuals under the cover of wartime national security.
Human rights organisations have consistently documented that defendants in political and security cases in Iran face trials that fall far short of international fair trial standards: limited or no access to lawyers during the investigation phase, confessions obtained under duress, trials held in camera, and appeals processes that provide minimal substantive review.
The shortening of the interval between arrest and execution — documented by HRANA in the current period — suggests that even those limited procedural safeguards are being further compressed during the war.
The Domestic Political Dimension
The execution acceleration needs to be understood in the context of Iran’s domestic political situation, which is itself deeply complicated by the war.
The killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the February 28 strikes removed the figure who had held Iran’s factional political system together for more than three decades. The process of political succession — which has not been fully resolved — has created space for different factions to assert influence over the direction of the war, the ceasefire negotiations, and domestic policy.
The IRGC, Iran’s most powerful military and political institution, has interests in the outcome of any peace settlement that may not align with those of the Pezeshkian administration or the emerging post-Khamenei leadership. The acceleration of security-related executions during this period may reflect efforts by different factions within the system to demonstrate strength and ideological commitment at a moment of transition.
It may also reflect genuine concern about internal security: the scale of the military campaign against Iran’s infrastructure has been unprecedented, and the government’s ability to monitor and control its own apparatus — against a backdrop of 87 days of internet blackout and acute economic hardship — has been under pressure.
The International Response — and Its Limits
Human rights organisations including HRANA, Amnesty International, and Iran Human Rights — a Norway-based monitoring group — have documented and condemned the acceleration in executions. Their reporting provides the primary source of systematic information about conditions inside Iran, in the absence of independent journalism or international monitoring access.
International governments have been largely silent on the execution acceleration. The diplomatic energy of the US, Europe, and regional actors has been consumed by the ceasefire negotiations and the Hormuz question. Human rights concerns — which were never the central driver of US policy toward Iran — have been further marginalised by the immediate strategic priorities of the war and its aftermath.
That marginalisation is not without consequence. Iran’s government is aware that international attention is elsewhere, and that the political cost of accelerated domestic repression during the war is significantly lower than it would be in a period of normal international scrutiny. The pattern — using external crises to cover internal repression — is not unique to Iran. It is, however, well-documented in its case.
The Prisoners of the War
Behind the statistics are individuals. Espionage charges. Dual nationals. Journalists. Labour activists. Members of religious minorities. Former government officials accused of disloyalty. People whose cases were already moving through Iran’s judicial system before the war began, whose fates have been accelerated by the cover a state of war provides.
Their names are largely unknown outside Iran. Their cases receive limited coverage even within Iran, where state media does not provide independent reporting on the judiciary, and where the internet blackout that lasted 87 days limited the flow of information to and from the country.
The war between the United States and Iran has been described in terms of oil prices, missiles, nuclear programmes, and the Strait of Hormuz. Those dimensions are real and consequential. So are the 31 people executed in the war’s first 65 days, most of them for political or security offences, in a judicial system that provides minimal protection against the use of lethal state power.
What Happens Next
The ceasefire and peace negotiations, if they produce a settlement, will eventually lead to some normalisation of relations between Iran and the international community. History suggests that such normalisations do not produce meaningful accountability for human rights abuses conducted during the period of conflict — particularly in authoritarian states where the relevant institutions remain intact and in control.
The documentation being produced by HRANA and other monitoring organisations during this period is important precisely because it creates a record that exists independently of the political calculations of governments and institutions. Whether that record ever produces accountability is a different, and harder, question.
What is certain is that the 31 executions documented in the first 65 days of the war are not the final count. The war has not ended. The domestic repression that accompanies it has not ended. And the international community’s attention remains, overwhelmingly, elsewhere.
LoudFact.com is an independent global news and explainer platform. This report is based on reporting from CBS News, HRANA, NPR, and Amnesty International’s Iran documentation as of May 28, 2026.
