Executions, Exile, and Violence: Escalation of Systematic Human Rights Violations in Ghezel Hesar Prison
28-July-2025
Category: Prisoners
27 July 2025
News Category: Prisoners
Breathing in Confinement – On Sunday morning, agents of the Ministry of Intelligence, accompanied by over 100 armed special guard forces, stormed Ward 4 of Ghezel Hesar Prison under the orders of prison authorities.
According to Breathing in Confinement, the news outlet of the Prisoners’ Rights League in Iran, the raid was carried out on the orders of Allahkaram Azizi, the head of Ghezel Hesar Prison, with the assistance of his deputy, Hassan Ghobadi. During the assault, political prisoners were severely beaten, and their personal belongings were destroyed.
The report states that the agents used extreme violence, employing handcuffs, leg restraints, and hoods over prisoners’ heads, forcibly transferring them to solitary confinement. Following this attack, all phone communications between prisoners and their families were cut off, while their health conditions remain unknown.
This incident comes amid a broader wave of repression of political prisoners, escalating executions, and illegal exiles—including the executions of Behrouz Ehsani Eslamloo and Mehdi Hassani, and the unlawful transfer of Saeed Masouri, a political prisoner who was exiled to Zahedan Prison after 25 years of imprisonment without a single day leave. These developments have intensified concerns about the safety and well-being of detainees.
Such acts of violence are clear evidence of the systematic violation of human rights within Iran’s prison system. The primary aim of these repressive actions is to intimidate prisoners and crush their will to continue peaceful resistance.
In recent months, Ghezel Hesar Prison has become a centre of resistance. The “No to Execution Tuesdays” hunger strike campaign, initiated by political prisoners, is now recognised as the longest ongoing civil protest inside Iranian prisons. The regime seeks to silence this resistance through executions, violence, and oppression.
Breathing in Confinement strongly condemns this attack and calls on the international community, human rights organisations, and the United Nations to fulfil their responsibilities in protecting the lives and rights of political prisoners in Iran and to take urgent action to halt the executions and acts of violence.
These recent events recall the tragic summer of 1988, which, as Fars News Agency, affiliated with the IRGC, has ominously noted, is “a time that must be repeated.” Such statements raise serious fears of further egregious human rights violations.