Iran has hanged four ethnic Kurds -- all under the age of 30 -- convicted of spying for Tehran's archenemy, Israel, despite protests by rights group who said they were found guilty without a fair trial.
The individuals executed on January 29, identified as Mohammad (Hajir) Faramarzi, Mohsen Mazloum, Vafa Azarbar, and Pejman Fatehi, had been accused of plotting a bomb attack in Isfahan in collaboration with Israel, claims that have been widely disputed.
The Mizan news agency, which is affiliated with the Iranian judiciary, reported that the four, apprehended just days before the alleged operation last summer, were linked to Israel, but the facts were unclear due to the secretive nature of the judicial process which has been strongly criticized by the families of the accused and human rights bodies, who deemed the executions unjust.
Masoud Shamsnejad, the lawyer representing the four men, revealed on January 16 that the Supreme Court had dismissed a retrial request, citing the lack of a formal verdict, “a common issue in security cases,” the lawyer said.
The men were "sentenced to death in a grossly unfair trial marred by allegations of torture and other ill-treatment," Amnesty International said earlier this month in a warning the executions were imminent.
Mizan's report alleged that the four were recruited by Mossad through the leftist Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, trained in military bases in African countries, and prepared for several operational stages.
Simultaneously, media outlets close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released various propaganda videos against the executed prisoners.
The news of the executions triggered widespread reactions. Ten political prisoners at Qezelhesar Prison reported a security forces raid on January 28 to prevent the disclosure of the executions.
The 10 declared a commitment to a weekly hunger strike in response to the wave of executions and in solidarity with other inmates on death row.
In a letter received by RFE/RL’s Radio Farda on January 29, the prisoners detailed abuses during the raid, including physical assaults and the confiscation of their belongings aimed at suppressing revelations about the government-sanctioned killings.
The Iran Human Rights Organization condemned the executions, urging the international community to break its silence on Iran's execution spree, which rights group say has put the country in second place globally for executions last year, behind only China.
Mahmud Amiri Moghadam, the organization's director, labeled the executions as extrajudicial killings based on confessions obtained under torture and without fair trials.
The Norway-based organization also called on Nada Al-Nashif, the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, to cancel her upcoming Tehran visit in protest.
Other political and civil figures, including exiled opposition leader and former crown prince Reza Pahlavi, warned the Islamic republic is “waging a war against both its people and the world.”
Opposition figures such as Hamed Esmaeilion, Nazanin Boniadi, and Masih Alinejad also strongly condemned the executions.
Gohar Eshghi, a civil activist and mother of Sattar Beheshti, a blogger who died in prison due to torture, expressed her criticism toward Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Iran and Israel have been engaged in a yearslong shadow war. Tensions have been exacerbated by the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas, which has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
Meanwhile, the rate of executions in Iran has been rising sharply, particularly in the wake of the widespread protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in September 2022 after she was arrested for wearing a hijab improperly.
Iran Human Rights said that as of December 2023 more than 700 people had been executed in Iran, with a marked increase in recent months.