Osnabrück, Germany
Niki Nikbakht comes from a close-knit household. She fondly flicks by means of photographs of her two elder brothers, Hadi and Fazlollah, at her dwelling in Osnabrück, northwest Germany.
In one picture, Hadi grins again at her as he embraces his two sons. He additionally has a 5-month-old daughter who’s by no means met her father. He’s been imprisoned since earlier than she was born, sentenced to demise by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“I keep thinking, what if it really happens? What if I never get to see my two brothers again?” says Nikbakht, preventing again tears. “But then I tell myself, ‘Niki, you have to keep going. Keep fighting. Stay strong. Don’t let this break you.’”
Hadi, 45, and Fazlollah, 50, are simply two out of dozens of Iranian political prisoners going through execution in Iran proper now. The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR), a non-governmental group with members inside and outdoors Iran, has been documenting instances like theirs and believes the regime has ramped up executions underneath the duvet of battle.
On Wednesday, IHR decried the execution of Mohammad Amini Dehaghani, arrested for collaborating in January protests and sentenced to demise following what the rights group believes to have been “an unfair trial.” So far this 12 months, the regime has executed no less than 47 political prisoners, a large enhance from 16 across the similar time final 12 months. NCS has reached out to Iran for remark.
When widespread protests started throughout Iran on the finish of final 12 months, US President Donald Trump warned the management in Tehran towards a violent crackdown on demonstrators, saying America would “come to their rescue.”
The Iranian regime doubled down, using deadly drive to disperse demonstrators. The quantity killed is contested however the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has confirmed the deaths of greater than 6,000 protesters, with a further 17,000 deaths underneath investigation. The Iranian authorities has acknowledged greater than 3,000 deaths, however blamed most of the killings on “rioters” who have been half of what it described as an organized Israeli-led plot.
Still, Trump claimed his menace – after which the choice to not intervene – stopped additional bloodshed.
Weeks later, because the US and Israel launched a full-scale war towards Iran, Trump known as on Iranians to “seize the moment” and “take back” their nation. “America is with you. I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise. The rest will be up to you, but we’ll be there to help,” he stated.
But as Trump and the White House drained of the battle, and the worldwide financial repercussions worsened, their language softened and help for Iranian dissidents waned. When the US and Iran signed a 14-point Memorandum of Understanding on June 17, there was no point out of protesters, persecuted dissidents or human rights.
At the identical time, because it held discussions with the US, Iran had already begun ramping up executions, human rights teams say.
“While the attention of the international community was on the war, the Iranian regime saw this as an opportunity to execute political prisoners because under normal circumstances these executions lead to international condemnation and they have a high political cost,” IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam advised NCS.
With every execution, the regime sends a chilling message: we’re nonetheless in cost, and dissent is not going to be tolerated.
The clean cheque seemingly afforded to the regime because the world hopes for peace – and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz – seems to carry little hope for Nikbakht’s brothers.
The pair have been arrested earlier than the large January protests, at their dwelling in Golpaygan. Human rights organizations say they have been taken on October 25, 2025 when authorities tried to grab their land. The two brothers had been politically energetic for years, even collaborating in a marketing campaign calling for a referendum on the Islamic Republic, however in early June have been sentenced to demise on the broad cost of “fesad fil arz” – a capital offense underneath Iranian regulation that interprets as “corruption on Earth” – after being accused of encouraging younger individuals to protest towards the authorities.
“The Islamic Republic never wants to admit that it has political opponents or political prisoners. It always tries to portray politically active people as dangerous criminals, so it can claim they are a threat to society and justify sentencing them to death,” Nikbakht says. “In reality, it’s creating fear in society.”
Iran says all prisoners within the Islamic Republic are afforded due course of. But Nikbakht says her brothers have been held with out a correct trial for months and that their case – and their sentencing – was sped up after the war between the US and Iran started.
“The war really has had an impact,” she says.
Human rights teams say that so as to justify these executions, the regime is counting on pressured confessions.
Nasser Bakerzadeh, 26, and Mehrab Abdollahzadeh, 28, are two examples. Earlier this 12 months, they confessed to severe crimes.
“I photographed two police stations and sent the photos. I also took photos of a hall in an IRGC (Sepah) facility where soldiers were standing,” Bakerzadeh says in a video shared May 2 on Iranian state media, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
But in calls from jail to relations and rights teams throughout their ultimate days, each denied the crimes to which they’d publicly admitted, saying they’d been tortured and compelled to make false confessions.
“I was subjected to the most severe psychological torture. They left me alone in that cell for 20 days at a time,” Bakerzadeh stated. “I had lost my mind.”
“You are hearing my voice from Urumieh Central Prison, and this may be the last time you hear it,” Abdollahzadeh is heard saying in a recording from December shared on February 19 by the NGO Kurdistan Human Rights. “From the very first day of my arrest, they forced confessions out of me through torture and threats, confessions that were entirely false. None of the charges against me are true. They know it, and God knows it. I am innocent.”
Human rights organizations say these retractions should not a shock.
“All the political prisoners who have been executed in the past three months, our records indicate they were all sentenced based on confessions extracted after torture,” IHR’s Moghaddam says. “They’ve been facing lengthy solitary confinement, and of course there is no due process, no access to a lawyer of their choice.”
Both Bakerzadeh and Abdollahzadeh have been hanged in early May.
Kurdish Iranian activist Hamid Chapati shared a cell with the 2 males, having spent a number of months on the infamous Urumieh Central Prison in West Azerbaijan province himself.
“For Nasser (Bakerzadeh) and Mehrab (Abdollahzadeh) and every prisoner sentenced to execution, every day can be the last day and every moment can be the last moment, at nights they cannot sleep,” he advised NCS.
Chapati not too long ago fled Iran for Iraq, fearing execution himself. He spoke with NCS from an undisclosed location.
Chapati stated Bakerzadeh despatched him a message by means of a mutual good friend, days earlier than he was executed, saying he wished to talk one final time. But that dialog by no means occurred.
“When I heard the news of his execution I felt like I was executed with him too,” Chapati stated.
It’s as a result of of stories like these that Nikbakht feels she will be able to’t cease in her efforts. She needs to be her brothers’ voice, utilizing the worldwide group and the media to lift the stakes for a regime eyeing their demise.
But it’s not a simple process.
“Maybe sometimes I smile, but that’s all I can do in front of other people – to smile and appear strong,” she says. “Inside, though, I keep asking myself: Why is this happening? Why should people face this for wanting freedom? It’s incredibly hard.”