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15JUN

Amnesty: 39 executions since war began

4 min read
11:33UTC

Amnesty International documented at least 39 political executions and more than 6,000 arbitrary arrests in Iran since the war began on 28 February, in a report dated 28 May. The repression kept wartime tempo throughout the Doha talks.

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Key takeaway

Iran's prisons kept wartime execution tempo through the Doha talks; the deal timetable never reached them.

Amnesty International, the London-based human rights watchdog founded in 1961, published the first comprehensive count of the war window in a report dated Thursday 28 May: at least 39 political executions and more than 6,000 arbitrary arrests in Iran since the war began on 28 February 1. The 39 break down as 16 protesters, 9 dissidents, 10 people convicted of spying for the US or Israel, and 4 for armed rebellion 2. Amnesty also logged an 88-day internet blackout, forced confessions aired on state media, and asset seizures targeting more than 750 individuals 3.

The tally sits on top of a register that had already passed 200 executions for 2026 by mid-May, when Ramin Zaleh and Karim Maroufpour were hanged at Naqadeh Central Prison without notice to their families . It also encompasses the 25-27 May cluster, including the execution of Turkish national Gholamreza Khani Shakarab on spying-for-Israel charges, over which NATO member Ankara issued no public protest .

The two clocks never synchronised. While negotiators in Qatar debated whether the Hormuz memorandum was "largely negotiated", Iran's judiciary and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, the ideological military branch whose security operations underpin the arrests) carried executions at the same pace they ran before the Doha track opened. The diplomacy moved on a 60-day horizon; the prisons moved on a daily one. For the 39 already executed and the 6,000 detained, a briefing room discussing a tentative deal changed nothing.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

On 28 May, Amnesty International published its first full count of what Iran has done to its own people since the war started on 28 February 2026. Amnesty is a London-based charity that monitors human rights abuses by governments worldwide; it accepts no government funding so that it can report on any country without fear of losing support. The numbers: 39 people executed for political reasons, more than 6,000 arrested without proper legal process, and 88 days of near-total internet shutdown. The 39 executions break into four groups: 16 were protesters, nine were political dissidents, ten were people convicted of spying for the US or Israel, and four were convicted of armed rebellion. These executions happened while Iran was simultaneously negotiating with the United States over ending the conflict. That is not a coincidence Amnesty glosses over. The report documents that Iran's security apparatus kept running at wartime pace even as diplomats talked peace in Doha and Islamabad. A separate monitoring group called Hengaw, based in Norway and focused on Kurdish communities in Iran, has been tracking individual executions prison by prison. Hengaw's running register records a higher total than Amnesty's 39, because Hengaw counts all security-linked cases, while Amnesty counts only the 39 cases it has individually confirmed as politically motivated.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Iran's wartime judicial system has three structural features that produce accelerated execution tempos independently of any political instruction.

First, the 88-day internet blackout (documented in and partially lifted on 25 May) severed the connection between defence lawyers and their clients in custody. Under normal operating conditions, Iranian defence lawyers can monitor case status, file appeals, and alert families and international monitors.

The blackout eliminated this function, allowing cases to move from arrest to execution in under 50 days, as in Mojtaba Kian's case (arrested March 2026, executed 24 May), without any observable escalation visible to external monitors.

Second, wartime espionage charges carry mandatory death sentences under Article 183 of Iran's Islamic Penal Code, and the Supreme National Security Council's wartime classification of 'supporting the enemy' is broad enough to encompass any contact with foreign media, international organisations, or diaspora networks.

The 10 espionage-category executions in Amnesty's count were processed through the Revolutionary Court, which holds closed hearings, bars independent legal representation, and accepts intelligence service testimony without cross-examination.

Third, the IRGC's internal security role expanded dramatically after the 28 February strikes decapitated civilian state structures. The IRGC now runs both the physical detention estate and the intelligence services that generate the prosecution cases. This vertical integration between arrest authority and prosecution means no independent state body checks the evidence quality before cases reach the Revolutionary Court.

Escalation

The execution tempo has not slowed during the diplomatic window and may be accelerating. Amnesty's 39-figure for 90 days of war works out to roughly one political execution every 2.3 days. Hengaw's 25-27 May cluster, with five executions over three days, suggests the pace is not declining.

Iran's government is running a negotiating posture externally while running a consolidation posture internally; both can be sustained simultaneously as long as the internet blackout limits the information flow that would make the contradiction politically costly.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    Amnesty's 28 May report provides the evidentiary foundation for any post-conflict accountability process: the 39 named execution categories and 6,000-plus arrest records constitute a documented dataset that UN Special Procedures and the International Criminal Court can draw on for referral or monitoring purposes.

    Medium term · Assessed
  • Risk

    If any peace agreement is signed before the internal execution campaign concludes, Iran's negotiating partners, particularly the European states involved in the 40-nation Hormuz coalition, will face domestic pressure to condition sanctions-relief implementation on cessation of political executions, creating a conditionality layer the current MOU structure does not address.

    Short term · Assessed
  • Meaning

    NATO member Turkey's silence over the 26 May execution of Turkish national Gholamreza Khani Shakarab (ID:3659), while Turkey serves as an active mediator in Iran-related diplomacy, signals that Ankara has calculated that mediation access is worth more than consular protest over a single citizen, a calculation that may be tested if further foreign nationals are executed.

    Short term · Assessed
  • Precedent

    The 88-day internet blackout, confirmed by Amnesty as the longest sustained wartime internet shutdown in modern history, establishes a template for information control during armed conflict that other authoritarian states have already begun studying, per Freedom House reporting.

    Long term · Assessed
Sources:Amnesty International
Mentions:Amnesty International →Iran →Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) →Hengaw →Mojtaba Kian →UN Special Rapporteur →Iraq →Qatar →Islamabad →Israel →Gholamreza Khani Shakarab →Iran-Iraq War →Doha →Tehran →Ankara →Norway →NATO →United States →Ramin Zaleh →Naqadeh Central Prison →Karim Maroufpour →Iran Human Rights →Iranian Revolution →
First Reported In

Update #111 · US sanctions the strait its deal reopens

Amnesty International· 29 May 2026
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Causes and effects
Caused by
Naqadeh executes two Kurdish PDKI prisoners
Amnesty's 28 May 39-execution tally builds on the execution register that had already passed 200 for 2026 by mid-May, covering the same wartime political category.
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Amnesty: 39 executions since war began
Iran's security state held its execution and arrest tempo through the diplomatic track, indifferent to whether the deal was close.
Led to
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