Jailed Iranian Activist Tajzadeh Calls For Immediate End To Executions

Prominent imprisoned political activist Mostafa Tajzadeh has issued a statement from inside Iran's notorious Evin Prison calling on Iranian authorities to "immediately end the execution of young people," warning that the accelerated pace of hangings risks pushing the country toward internal conflict.

The statement, dated August 3 and published on his Telegram account, comes amid a sharp escalation in executions since the war between Iran, the United States, and Israel began on February 28.

Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister who has spent years in and out of Iranian prisons for criticizing the Islamic republic and its leadership, argued that authorities are sending "mostly young people" to the gallows "hastily and faster than normal procedure," based on rulings from courts he said suffer from "serious flaws and ambiguities" and lack transparency.

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He drew a direct line between the crackdown that followed nationwide protests in January and the current wave of executions, warning that the state risks repeating the same mistakes that fueled that unrest.

"The people are still mourning the blood unjustly shed" during the January protests, he said, calling for an independent, national fact-finding committee to investigate the events of January 8 and 9 -- the deadliest days of the upheaval -- and for detainees to be given access to independent lawyers, public trials, and a genuine right to defense.

Rights groups have documented more than 6,000 deaths during the crackdown, but many say the real toll is much higher. Some estimates put the figure in the tens of thousands.

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Tajzadeh, who has previously called for national reconciliation, said his opposition to capital punishment was not a denial of the underlying crimes or a dismissal of victims' suffering, but that "restorative justice" needed to balance the rights of defendants against those of victims and the country's broader interests.

Executions, he argued, "cure none of Iran's pain," build no lasting legitimacy, and instead deepen the divide between the state and the public.

Some rights groups say more than 50 people hit with security and political charges have been executed since the beginning of the war, though others put the number much higher.

According to the latest verified data, 448 people have been executed in Iran so far this year, many of whom were sentenced to death in connection with the January protests where thousands were killed by security forces and tens of thousands more detained.

Tajzadeh closed his statement by calling on "all who care for this land, across every political and ideological persuasion," to declare their opposition to executions through legal and civic means and to find a way to halt them.