Iran executed six death-row inmates Saturday it alleged carried out assaults within the nation’s oil-rich southwest on behalf of Israel, the newest prisoners to be put to demise in a wave of executions believed to be the very best in a long time.
The executions observe the 12-day Iran-Israel conflict in June, which ended with Tehran vowing it could goal its enemies at residence and overseas. Nevertheless, activists warn Iran usually depends on coerced confessions and closed-door trials in its demise penalty circumstances, notably these involving Israel.
Iran stated the boys killed law enforcement officials and safety forces, in addition to orchestrated bombings focusing on websites round Khorramshahr in Iran’s restive Khuzestan province. Iranian state tv aired footage of one of many males speaking concerning the assaults, saying it was the primary time the main points had been being made public.
A Kurdish group referred to as the Hengaw Group for Human Rights reported the boys’s execution, figuring out all of them as “Arab political prisoners” detained throughout protests in 2019. It stated Iran had accused the boys of getting hyperlinks to the Arab Wrestle Motion for the Liberation of Ahvaz, which has launched assaults in opposition to oil pipelines in Iran’s southwest up to now and different assaults.
“The six males had been subjected to extreme torture and coerced into giving televised ‘confessions’ below duress,” Hengaw stated.
The Arab inhabitants of Khuzestan has lengthy complained of discrimination by Iran’s central authorities. The area additionally has been roiled like different components of Iran within the waves of nationwide protests the nation has seen lately.
Iran individually put to demise one other inmate Saturday, it accused of killing a Sunni cleric in 2009 in Iran’s Kurdistan province, amongst different crimes.
In response to these protests and the June conflict, Iran has been placing prisoners to demise at a tempo unseen since 1988, when it executed 1000’s on the finish of the Iran-Iraq conflict.
The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights and the Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Heart for Human Rights in Iran put the variety of folks executed in 2025 at over 1,000, noting the determine could possibly be greater as Iran doesn’t report on every execution.
Impartial human rights specialists on the United Nations have additionally criticized Iran’s executions.
