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Iran Conflict 2026
13APR

Three Ali Fahim co-defendants face execution

2 min read
11:20UTC

Hengaw reports three co-defendants in the Ali Fahim case remain in solitary confinement at Ghezel Hesar prison facing imminent execution. Seventeen political prisoners have been killed since the war began.

ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Seventeen political prisoners executed since the war began; three co-defendants stand next in line.

The Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights reported on 24 April that three defendants in the Ali Fahim case, Shahab Zahdi, Abolfazl Salehi Siavoshani and Yaser Rajaeifar, remain in solitary confinement at Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj facing imminent execution 1. Hengaw is the Kurdish rights monitor that documents executions and political detentions across Iran. No new executions were confirmed on Friday itself.

Hengaw counts 17 political prisoners executed since 28 February, the date of the first US strikes, and a Q1 2026 total exceeding 160 executions across all categories. The Ali Fahim case has been the principal marker: Fahim was executed earlier in the war , and Amirali Mirjafari followed on Day 53 . The three remaining co-defendants in the same case now sit at the same pre-execution stage of the judicial sequence.

The post-28 February pace runs at roughly one political prisoner every three days, against a Q1 2026 non-political baseline that already made Iran the second-highest executioner in the world. Wartime pace sits inside that baseline rather than above it, which indicates the state is using existing administrative capacity to clear dissent cases under war cover rather than authorising a new volume of executions. The Ghezel Hesar clustering matters because solitary confinement at that specific facility has been the procedural precursor to execution for the Fahim-case defendants already killed.

The international visibility hinge is whether European capitals meeting at Cyprus on Friday raise the Hengaw tally in the summit conclusions. Hengaw's numbers are the single consistent measure that does not depend on Iranian state cooperation, and the 17-count since 28 February is the cleanest data point any European government can cite without contesting Tehran's internal judicial claims.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

A Norway-based human rights group called Hengaw tracks political prisoners in Iran. On 24 April, it reported that three men in the Ali Fahim protest-era case, Shahab Zahdi, Abolfazl Salehi Siavoshani and Yaser Rajaeifar, remain in solitary confinement in Ghezel Hesar Prison and face imminent execution. Ali Fahim himself was executed on 20 April. Since the start of the war on 28 February, Hengaw counts at least 17 political prisoners executed in Iran. Iran's total executions in the first quarter of 2026 exceed 160, including criminal cases. These are people who were arrested for participating in protests, often tried in proceedings that human rights groups say lasted less than a month.

First Reported In

Update #78 · Allies flagged, adversaries listed, nothing signed

Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights· 24 Apr 2026
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Different Perspectives
Qatar
Qatar
Qatar holds approximately $12 billion in frozen Iranian assets that Tehran named as the precondition for any Hormuz reopening sequence; with Oman sidelined and no agreed HEU custodian, the asset-routing architecture that any deal requires has no operational channel and no neutral financial intermediary to run it through.
Hengaw and Iranian civilian population
Hengaw and Iranian civilian population
Iranians face an internet capped at 40 per cent by hardware their president cannot dismantle, field killings that leave no court record, and judicial executions running in parallel; Hengaw, based in Norway, is the primary remaining monitor of a repression system the IRGC is deliberately moving beyond auditable records. The real toll is higher than any single monitor's count.
China
China
China supplied deep-packet-inspection hardware that caps Iran's internet at 40 per cent and enables an instant on-demand blackout, and was barred by Trump as a potential HEU custodian on 27 May. Beijing gains from Iran's continued non-alignment with the West while the DPI sale extends Chinese surveillance-technology exports as a geopolitical instrument.
Pakistan
Pakistan
Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar met Rubio in Washington on 29 May, formally inheriting the role of sole active mediator after Oman's forced withdrawal. Pakistan lacks Oman's banking infrastructure for frozen-asset routing and carries its own regional stakes, making it a less structurally neutral broker for the Qatar-held $12 billion sequencing.
Kuwait
Kuwait
Kuwait invoked Article 51 of the UN Charter after absorbing an Iranian ballistic-missile strike on Ali Al Salem Air Base on 28 May, becoming the first Gulf state to make a formal individual self-defence claim in the war. The invocation creates a legal record enabling a future bilateral defence-pact activation without yet triggering it.
Oman
Oman
Oman denied any Hormuz toll plan within hours of Bessent's 28 May threat, absorbing a sanctions warning from the country it has brokered for since 1981. The rapid capitulation preserved the channel formally, but Tehran now knows Washington will threaten its own mediator, which changes Muscat's calculus on how far it can lean into any joint-management architecture.