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Iran Conflict 2026
20APR

Hengaw: two more executions, Yavari tortured

3 min read
10:10UTC

Hengaw documented two further custodial executions at Ghezel Hesar during the ceasefire window, with 31-year-old Abbas Yavari confirmed tortured to death at a Shiraz detention centre; Iranian authorities called it suicide.

ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Hengaw's execution and torture documentation has continued through the ceasefire window rather than paused inside it.

Hengaw, the Norway-based Kurdish human rights organisation that monitors custodial executions and custodial deaths inside Iran, documented two further executions at Ghezel Hesar prison during the ceasefire window, and confirmed the death of Abbas Yavari, aged 31, under torture at a detention centre in Shiraz 1. Iranian authorities declared Yavari's death a suicide.

Ghezel Hesar is a high-security prison in Karaj where Hengaw has previously documented multiple political executions during the 2026 conflict. Two further executions there (Biglari and Kalour) were recorded on 14 April . The 18 April additions extend Hengaw's running toll during the ceasefire window rather than before or after it. Executions during an active pause in hostilities are data points the Iranian government had hoped to obscure under the blackout; Hengaw's documentation chain has continued to produce names.

Yavari's case is separately notable because it places a named, aged individual at a specific detention centre in Shiraz and contests the Iranian government's suicide ruling with an independent assessment of torture. Custodial deaths ruled suicide by the state are the category in which Iranian rights monitors most frequently identify extra-judicial killings; Hengaw's willingness to name one at 31, and to tie it to a location, gives international observers a documentary anchor.

Behind these cases, Hengaw's wider wartime count sharpens the frame. Hengaw had already documented 125,630 damaged structures and 960 people rescued from rubble by 13 April . The Ghezel Hesar and Shiraz reports add named custodial victims to a toll that has so far been measured mainly in building counts.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

While negotiations about a ceasefire extension were underway on 18 April, two Iranian men were executed in Ghezel Hesar Prison near Karaj ; and a 31-year-old named Abbas Yavari died in a detention centre in Shiraz. Iran's government said Yavari took his own life; Hengaw, a human rights organisation based in Norway that monitors Iran's Kurdish region and prison system, confirmed he was tortured to death. Ghezel Hesar is one of Iran's largest high-security prisons. Hengaw and other groups have documented a pattern of executions there that are carried out under drug trafficking charges ; a mechanism that allows Iran to execute political prisoners without publicly acknowledging their political activities. The ceasefire announced in early April applies to the external military conflict. Iran's government has not indicated it applies to its domestic prison system.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj has been documented by Hengaw since 2020 as a primary facility for political executions carried out under narcotics convictions ; a legal mechanism Iran uses to produce death sentences that do not require public acknowledgment of the victim's political activities.

Abbas Yavari's case follows the same pattern: a detention centre death attributed to suicide by Iranian authorities, documented as torture by an independent human rights monitor. The 31-year-old's age and the Shiraz detention location suggest he was part of a protest-related arrest cohort ; Iran arrested several thousand people in Shiraz during the early weeks of the war.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    The Ghezel Hesar executions during the ceasefire window give European human rights advocates within the 51-nation coalition a documented basis to press for human rights conditionality on Hormuz mission participation.

  • Risk

    Continued custodial executions during ceasefire diplomacy create evidentiary records that could support future ICC referral proceedings ; but Iran is not an ICC member state and the practical enforcement consequence is limited.

First Reported In

Update #73 · Russia yes, Iran no: Treasury signs only one waiver

Asriran citing Reuters and Tasnim News Agency· 19 Apr 2026
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Causes and effects
This Event
Hengaw: two more executions, Yavari tortured
The rights toll at Ghezel Hesar has continued through an active ceasefire window, and the Shiraz custodial death gives observers a named individual in the growing list of extra-judicial killings during a period the Iranian government has described as a pause.
Different Perspectives
Global South governments (Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa)
Global South governments (Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa)
Neutrality was possible when the targets were military. 148 dead schoolgirls made it impossible — no government can explain that away to its own citizens.
Trump administration
Trump administration
Oscillating between claiming diplomatic progress and threatening escalation, while deploying additional ground forces to the Gulf.
Israeli security establishment
Israeli security establishment
Fears a rapid, vague US-Iran agreement that freezes military operations before the IDF achieves what it considers full strategic objectives. A senior military official assessed the campaign is 'halfway there' and needs several more weeks.
Iraqi government
Iraqi government
Iraq's force majeure is the position of a non-belligerent whose entire petroleum economy has been paralysed by a war between others — storage full, exports blocked, production being cut with no timeline for resumption.
Russia — Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia
Russia — Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia
Moscow calibrated its position between Gulf states and Iran: abstaining on Resolution 2817 rather than vetoing it, signalling it would not block protection for Gulf states, while refusing to endorse a text that ignores the US-Israeli campaign it regards as the conflict's proximate cause. Russia proposed its own ceasefire text — which failed 4-2-9 — allowing Moscow to claim the peacemaker role while providing Iran with satellite targeting intelligence, a duality consistent with its approach in Syria.
France — President Macron
France — President Macron
France absorbed its first combat death in a conflict it has publicly declined to join. The killing of Chief Warrant Officer Frion in Erbil forces Macron to choose between escalating involvement and accepting casualties from the margins.