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Iran Executes 13 Under Ceasefire Cover

2 min read

08:05UTC

Iran HRM / NetBlocks

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ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

The ceasefire has changed the source of danger for Iranians, not removed it.

Iran HRM (Iran Human Rights Monitor) confirmed 13 political executions in 18 days between 19 March and 6 April. Ali Fahim, a 23-year-old protest detainee, was executed at Ghezel Hesar prison on 6 April without family notice. At least 14 secret executions at Ghezel Hesar and Qom Central Prison are documented. "Secret" means no prior announcement, no family access, no judicial transparency.

The internet blackout has reached 1,008 hours (Day 42), the longest nationwide shutdown in recorded global history, longer than Myanmar's extended blackouts and North Korea's structural isolation, which operates through infrastructure absence rather than active suppression. NetBlocks confirmed connectivity at roughly 1% of normal levels. The blackout duration has grown since the casualty report and now covers the full war and ceasefire period.

The execution pace (13 in 18 days) mirrors Amnesty International's documented pattern during the 2022-2023 protests, when authorities used periods of reduced international scrutiny to execute protest-linked detainees. The ceasefire provides the same cover . Authorities are arresting VPN sellers and sending police warning texts to users; the population celebrating a "victory" in Tehran cannot independently verify what the ceasefire says.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

While the world watches the ceasefire talks, Iran's government has been secretly executing political prisoners — people arrested for protesting. Thirteen were killed in 18 days. One of them was 23 years old. His family was not told he would die. Iran has now cut off internet access for 1,008 hours — more than 42 days — longer than any country has ever done. With no internet, Iranians cannot learn what the ceasefire says, and cannot organise around it.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The systematic execution of protest detainees serves two functions in Iran's domestic political economy: deterrence of future protest and elimination of organised opposition networks before any political opening that a ceasefire might produce. The internet blackout serves the same dual function: it prevents protest coordination and prevents the population from learning the terms of any deal being negotiated in their name in Islamabad.

The executions also reflect the IRGC's consolidation of domestic control during the ceasefire, using the security apparatus freed from active combat operations to process a prison backlog accumulated during 2,700+ wartime arrests.

What could happen next?

Consequence
The ceasefire is providing domestic repression cover while international attention concentrates on Islamabad — a pattern that the 1988 prison massacres established as a deliberate Iranian state practice.
Immediate · Assessed
Risk
The internet blackout prevents the Iranian population from reading ceasefire terms, organising politically around any deal, or verifying whether their government's 'victory' narrative reflects what was actually agreed.
Immediate · Assessed
Precedent
At 1,008 hours, Iran's internet blackout is the longest nationally imposed shutdown in recorded history, establishing a new precedent for information control that other authoritarian governments may replicate.
Long term · Assessed

Source Landscape

This story draws on mixed-leaning sources from United States

United States

Primary parallel: During the 1988 mass executions in Iran — in which between 2,800 and 5,000 political prisoners were killed in a matter of months — the killings were later attributed to a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini during the final phase of the Iran-Iraq war ceasefire. The ceasefire-cover pattern has a direct historical precedent in Iran's political history.

Counter-parallel: Myanmar's internet shutdowns during the 2021 post-coup crackdown — which NetBlocks tracked as prolonged but not exceeding 500 continuous hours nationwide — are the closest modern comparator. Iran's 1,008-hour blackout exceeds Myanmar's longest documented shutdown by more than double.

Consensus view: Amnesty International's Iran researcher Hadi Ghaemi and Iran Human Rights Monitor both document that the Islamic Republic uses periods of reduced international scrutiny — protest crackdowns, ceasefire negotiations, major diplomatic events — to accelerate execution of political detainees. The 13-in-18-days pace is consistent with the 2022-2023 Mahsa Amini execution wave, when 18 executions occurred in a comparable window.

Counter-view: Iran's judiciary officially frames these executions as criminal sentences under domestic law, not political acts. From Tehran's legal perspective, Ali Fahim and others were convicted of crimes including 'enmity against God' and assault — categories that exist in Iranian law regardless of international characterisation.

Key tension: The 1,008-hour internet blackout ensures that the population whose tax revenue funds the prison system, whose sons are being executed, cannot verify WHO is being executed, why, or whether due process occurred. The blackout is not incidental to the executions — it is part of the same control architecture.

Sources:CNBC·Baker McKenzie

Mentions:Iraq →Amnesty International →Mahsa Amini →Iran Human Rights →Mahsa Amini protests →Tehran →Qom →Prima →North Korea →Qom Prison →NetBlocks →Iran →Ali Fahim →Qezel Hesar Prison →

First Reported In

Update #64 · Islamabad talks open already cracked

CNBC· 10 Apr 2026

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Different Perspectives

Lloyd's of London

The Joint War Committee left Hormuz war-risk premiums at $10-14 million per voyage on 25 May, declining to move on Brent's 5% fall. The JWC's protocol requires a UN Security Council resolution or bilateral government certification letter before de-listing, and neither has arrived: a verbal understanding does not satisfy the formal condition the reinsurance market's treaty terms require.

Gulf Arab producers

Saudi Arabia and UAE depend on Hormuz for their own crude exports; Aramco CEO Nasser has warned no oil market recovery arrives until 2027 if the blockade continues past mid-June. Monday's $98.96 Brent settlement shortens nothing for Gulf producers without a signed instrument and a Pentagon mine-clearance timeline that runs up to six months post-ceasefire.

Qatar

Qatar holds $12bn of frozen Iranian assets at the centre of the sequencing dispute but cannot release them without explicit US Treasury authorisation, given the original freeze was a US instrument. As the asset-holding state, Qatar's leverage is real but passive: it is the escrow holder, not the decision-maker, and any resolution requires US Treasury sign-off that Trump has withheld.

Pakistan

With both Prime Minister Sharif and army chief Munir simultaneously in Beijing on 25 May, Pakistan has for the first time consolidated its civilian and military mediation tracks under China's roof. Munir's direct Tehran-to-Beijing flight signals that the security and financial threads of the sequencing problem are now being worked in parallel rather than sequentially.

China

Beijing hosted Pakistan's principal mediators and Iran's China envoy Ghalibaf simultaneously on 25 May while its banking regulator capped new state-bank lending to five sanctioned refiners. China is simultaneously the most credible third-party underwriter of the $12bn sequencing and the state whose institutions face live OFAC secondary-sanctions exposure if the deadlock persists through GL V's expiry.

United States

Trump posted on 24 May that the blockade holds until a deal is certified and signed, ruling out the informal MOU structure both sides had been building. The 'certified, and signed' condition is the first operational bar Trump has attached in 87 days, but it arrived without an executive instrument, maintaining the gap between posted ultimatum and signed US policy.