Iran regime intensifies crackdown amid Israel ceasefire

In Tehran's notorious Evin prison, the Iranian regime locks up its opponents, human rights activists, and political dissidents.

Iranian rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has spent years behind bars, including multiple stints in Evin prison, for her work calling attention to rights abuses in the Islamic Republic.

On Thursday, Mohammadi posted on X that she had received a report from a prison inmate about the high-security ward of the prison being mysteriously emptied out directly following Israeli bombardment.

Evin prison's "Ward 209" is where inmates are held in solitary confinement and interrogations are known to take place under gruesome conditions.

Mohammadi posted that a witness saw men and women being escorted from the ward in grey uniforms, loaded into vehicles, and taken to an unknown location with no information as to their whereabouts or condition. Prisoners from other sections were also said to have been moved in a similar manner.

Iran's regime expands its net

There is concern that inmates held in secret locations could be mistreated or even killed without anyone knowing.

Three Iranians have already been executed this week. At least two of them had earned their living as smugglers in the Iran-Iraq border region. A court justified the execution by saying that the three men had spied for Israel.

Dieter Karg, an Iran expert at Amnesty International, said the arrests and execution on "spying" accusations, is a sign that the Iranian government is trying to stifle the opposition in the turbulent period following confrontation with Israel.

"The regime is signaling that it is now taking action with full force," Karg told DW, adding that the regime is moving beyond trying to punish ostensible connections with Israel.

"Rather, it is now also a matter of accusing people who were originally imprisoned for non-political offenses of having political motives," Karg said.

"In fact, the men who were executed were trying to do nothing more than earn a living by smuggling, and this circumstance is now being exploited for political purposes," he added.

Nine executions in Iran since Israel launched attacks

According to the human rights organization Iran Human Rights (IHR), nine people have already been executed since Israel launched attacks on June 13.  According to IHR, a total of 594 people have already been executed in Iran this year.

In this respect, the recent executions do not come as a surprise, political scientist Diba Mirzaei, who researches Iran at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, told DW.

For years, the regime has responded to perceived threats with increasingly brutal and inhumane measures.

"The regime's message behind such actions is unmistakable. In essence, it says you are either with us or against us. And if you are against us, we will deal with you as we see fit. And no one can do anything about it," she said.

"The allegations that there were spies for Israel cannot be dismissed as irrelevant or false. Without collaborators, Israel would not have been able to carry out attacks from within Iran itself," Mirzaei said. She added that potential spies could come from both the Iranian population and the ranks of the regime itself.

"And that is, of course, particularly worrying for the leadership."

Iran's Deputy Minister of Defense from 1997 to 2002, Alireza Akbari, was perhaps the most famous case of a suspected spy coming from within the Iranian government ranks.

In 2019, he was arrested on charges of spying for the British intelligence agency MI6. Akbari denied the charges. He was executed in 2023.

The regime, from its own perspective, has no choice but to take action against suspected spies, said Mirzaei.

"Because if they were not severely punished, according to the regime's logic, other people might also decide to work as spies," she added.

Of course, defendants should receive appropriate legal defense, Mirzaei said.

"But that's not the regime's logic. So, there's no other option for them to resort to these very brutal measures."

Death penalty for 'collaborators'

The Islamic Consultative Assembly — the Iranian equivalent of a parliament in Western systems of government — recently passed a law that increases penalties for "collaborators."

According to the new legislation, espionage or collaboration with hostile governments, including the United States, constitutes the crime of so-called "corruption on earth" and is punishable by death.

Since the beginning of the Israeli attack on Iran, the Islamic Republic has begun large-scale arrests under pretexts such as publishing pro-Israel news, contacts with foreign media, and cooperation with or spying for Israel, IHR reports. According to the report, 900 people have already been arrested.

"The majority of those detained are people whose mobile devices were searched during checks that allegedly revealed content such as footage of Israeli military actions," according to the IHR report.

Weakened abroad, powerful at home

According to Iran expert Karg from Amnesty, the Iranian regime has lost much of its power basis, as its proxy militant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah have been drastically weakened, or have fallen from power, like the government of Bashar Assad in Syria.

"Now, it is at least trying to maintain its base in its own country by taking tough action," Karg said.

Amnesty's access to information within Iran is currently made difficult by an internet blackout.

"In this respect, we cannot say exactly what this process [foreign collaboration law] means for political prisoners, some of whom have already been in prison for many years. However, we fear that the number of death sentences and executions will increase," Karg said.

This could also apply to the Iranian-Swedish doctor Ahmadreza Djalali, among others. He was arrested in 2016 and subsequently sentenced to death for allegedly spying for Israel.

Political scientist Mirzaei also fears more executions and even harder punishments for political prisoners in the near future.

"In the past, the Iranian people hoped the West would do something for them. Now they are convinced of the opposite," she said, adding this makes helping political prisoners even more difficult.

"The only thing we can and must do is keep track of the number of executed people and political prisoners, of torture and severe abuses. Everything else can only come from the Iranian people themselves," she said.

Karg takes a similar view. Economic pressure, as well as negotiations on sanctions, could help influence the regime on human rights issues. "Otherwise, we at Amnesty International rely on the power of appeals. This has been partially successful," he said.

This article was translated from German