Iran Has Executed At Least 21 People, Arrested Over 4,000 Since Start of War With US and Israel, UN Reports

The Islamic regime in Iran has intensified efforts to oppress the civilian population through arrests and executions since the beginning of the conflict with the US and Israel, according to the United Nations.

On Wednesday, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) revealed that Iran had executed at least 21 people and arrested more than 4,000 over the last two months, following the launch of joint US-Israeli strikes on Feb. 28.

Allegations which resulted in death sentences included espionage (two), opposition group membership (10), and involvement with protests (nine).

“In times of war, threats to human rights increase exponentially,” said Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Türk called for regime officials to “halt all further executions, establish a moratorium on the use of capital punishment, fully ensure due process and fair trial guarantees, and immediately release those arbitrarily detained.”

Iranian courts have reportedly fast-tracked convictions and sentencing in recent months, citing the war as justification.

According to the OHCHR, those detained face brutal conditions, overcrowding, and even torture to coerce confessions. The bodies of some detainees who have died in custody appear to show possible torture. Those detained also experience weaponized medical neglect, a human rights violation which has reportedly led to the deteriorating health of imprisoned Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi.

In addition to forced confessions, Iranian judges can also resort to the principle of elm‑e‑qazi, a concept in Iran’s Islamic Penal Code which allows a guilty sentence based solely on circumstantial evidence.

Last week, Maryam Rajavi, president‑elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), spoke about the regime’s executions at the European Parliament in Brussels.

“The mullahs are exploiting wartime conditions to resort to relentless executions to block the path of popular uprisings. Today, political prisoners face the threat of mass killing,” Rajavi said. “The silence of European Union leaders and member states is unjustifiable. And today, I wish to once again raise my voice in protest against this silence in the face of these executions.”

Rajavi added that “a number of young people have been arrested in recent weeks on charges of alleged contact with or support for the Mojahedin Organization,” referring to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), an Iranian opposition group.

“The names of a group of them have been submitted to and communicated to international bodies,” she said. “By order of the regime’s judiciary chief, pressure and torture on political prisoners have intensified, and their sham trials and the issuance of criminal sentences have been expedited.”

Stating that 11 political prisoners alleged to be members of the MEK face execution, Rajavi implored that “urgent action must be taken to save their lives. Our position is that a halt to executions in Iran, as a demand of the entire Iranian people, must be included in any international agreement.”

Last month, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), an independent monitoring group, released a report documenting that from March 2025 to March 2026, police had arrested 78,907 people on ideological or political grounds.

Executions in the last Iranian year (covering much of calendar year 2025) reached at least 2,488, according to HRANA, with 63 of them women and two children. Drug offenses accounted for 955 executions, approximately three killings per day on average.

The Islamic regime chose to conduct 13 of the executions in public.

Earlier this month, the European groups Iran Human Rights (IHR) in Norway and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) in France released a separate joint report finding that Iran executed at least 1,639 people in 2025, a 68 percent leap from the 975 killed in 2024 and the highest seen since tracking began in 2008. All known executions were reportedly conducted by hanging.

Differences in methodology partially explain the discrepancy in tallies. IHR warned in its report that the full body count is likely much higher, as the group requires two sources to confirm an execution.

Iran’s penal code offers a variety of options for killing a human being, including hanging, firing squads, and even crucifixion or stoning. Hanging was the only method used from 2008 until the firing squad execution of Kurdish political prisoner Hedayat Abdullahpour on May 11, 2020.

In executions for murder under a sentence known as qisas, the Islamic regime encourages the family members of the victim to carry out the killing themselves. IHR has received reports of family members taking advantage of what is regarded as a “right” to do so.

In cases of public executions, prison officials use cranes. This brutal method leaves the condemned suffocating and strangling, lifted above the crowds for as much as 20 minutes before their suffering can conclude.

Photographs have documented children in attendance at public executions in Iran to watch the violence and cruelty. A 2006 study found that 52 percent of 200 children who witnessed public executions in Iran later showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with “88 suffering re-experiences, 24 avoidance and 62 hyperarousal.”

IHR has not found any executions by stoning since 2010, following the international outcry of the sentencing of Sakineh Ashtiani whose sentence was commuted, allowing her 2014 release.

Given the historical impact of the global community’s condemnations, Iranian officials have sought to hide human rights abuses from the world, imposing an internet blackout for 61 days since the war with the US and Israel began.

“This is denying people across the country access to vital information, silencing independent voices, and inflicting enormous social and economic harm,” Türk said. “It is exacerbating an already precarious humanitarian and economic situation and must be lifted immediately.”

Concluding her address to the European congress in Brussels, Rajavi called on the gathered representatives to implement a new policy toward Iran.

Rajavi advocated an approach that “provides the necessary technical means to ensure the Iranian people’s access to a free internet. Conditions relations with the clerical regime on an end to the execution of political prisoners and the killing of protesters. Brings the regime’s leaders to justice for crimes against humanity and genocide.”