16APR

Naqadeh executes two Kurdish PDKI prisoners

4 min read

14:27UTC

Ramin Zaleh and Karim Maroufpour were executed at dawn on 21 May at Naqadeh Central Prison on armed-rebellion charges via PDKI membership, the day Amnesty International's 2026 Iran execution register passed 200 against the 2,159 recorded in 2025.

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Key takeaway

Iran's wartime judicial pipeline is running ahead of the 2025 global record, on widening geography and parallel charge architectures.

Ramin Zaleh and Karim Maroufpour, both linked to the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), were executed at dawn on Thursday 21 May at Naqadeh Central Prison in West Azerbaijan without prior notice to their families ¹. Zaleh had been held since July 2024; Maroufpour, aged 29, had been held since March 2021. Both were charged with "armed rebellion" via PDKI membership. Hengaw, the Norway-based Kurdish rights monitor, recorded that Zaleh's trial had lasted "only a few minutes". Mizan, the Iranian judiciary's news agency, added "attempted assassination" to the published charge sheet.

The PDKI link matters for the wartime register. Membership of the party, banned in Iran since 1979, is treated by Iranian courts as standing evidence of armed rebellion regardless of whether specific acts are alleged. Hengaw and other Kurdish-focused monitors say convictions in these cases routinely rest on confessions extracted in prolonged solitary detention. A trial of "only a few minutes" is consistent with that pattern: the substantive question is settled before the courtroom proceeds.

Amnesty International placed Iran's 2026 executions above 200 in mid-May, against the 2,159 executed in 2025, the global high ². The 2025 figure averaged roughly 180 per month; 2026 is running ahead. The geography is widening too: the foreign-national execution track opened in Karaj on 20 May with two Iraqi nationals on espionage charges , and Thursday's PDKI cases extend the wartime pipeline into the Kurdish northwest on political-charge architecture rather than espionage.

Gholamreza Khani Shakarab, a Turkish national and former mixed martial arts champion, remains at Ghezel Hesar Prison at imminent execution risk . Hengaw reported him transferred to solitary on 22 May. The pattern across Naqadeh, Karaj and Ghezel Hesar is one of parallel charge tracks running concurrently rather than a single uniform escalation: armed-rebellion convictions in Kurdish-majority provinces, espionage convictions against foreign nationals, and detention transfers that precede the dawn execution slot. The wartime judicial pipeline is on a pace to exceed the 2025 record if it holds.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Two Kurdish men, Ramin Zaleh and Karim Maroufpour, were executed at dawn on 21 May at a prison in Naqadeh, a city in the Kurdish northwest of Iran. Both were members of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, a political party that has been banned in Iran since 1979. In Iran, membership of that party is treated by courts as evidence of armed rebellion against the state; a charge that carries the death penalty. A Norwegian-based human rights group called Hengaw documented that Zaleh's trial lasted only a few minutes. By mid-May, Iran had already executed more than 200 people in 2026. In 2025, it executed 2,159; the highest number of any country in the world that year. The 2026 pace is running ahead of that record if it continues. What makes this significant beyond the individual cases: Iran is now running executions on political charges in Kurdish-majority provinces at the same time as executing foreign nationals on espionage charges. These are two separate legal tracks running simultaneously, suggesting a broader wartime judicial acceleration.

What could happen next?

Risk
Gholamreza Khani Shakarab, a Turkish national held at Ghezel Hesar, faces execution on espionage charges at a moment when Ankara is absorbed by the CHP constitutional crisis. The Naqadeh executions signal that Iran is processing the wartime pipeline on its own calendar regardless of the diplomatic consequences for mediating states.
Consequence
Amnesty International's 2026 Iran execution register passing 200 in mid-May, against 2025's record 2,159, will sharpen European Parliament pressure on EU member states' Iran policy. The register pace is on track to approach or exceed the 2025 record, which would complicate any EU-mediated elements of a potential nuclear settlement.

Source Landscape

This story draws on mixed-leaning sources from France and Iran

France

Iran

LeftRight

Primary parallel: Iran's 1988 mass executions of political prisoners; estimated at 2,800 to 5,000 by Amnesty International across Evin, Gohardasht and Karaj prisons from July to September 1988; established the doctrinal template for using 'armed rebellion' and moharebeh charges as a blanket prosecution framework for opposition-party membership. The 1988 executions specifically targeted Mojahedin-e Khalq members and leftist prisoners in a rolling wave; trials were conducted by three-person committees in a matter of minutes, with no defence representation.

PDKI prisoners were included in the 1988 wave. Hengaw's documentation of Zaleh's 'few minutes' trial is structurally identical to the 1988 committee model, which the Islamic Republic never formally abandoned. The 2026 executions at Naqadeh represent a reactivation of that doctrinal architecture under wartime conditions rather than a novel development.

Counter-parallel: Iran's 2010-2015 PDKI execution cluster; documented by Iran Human Rights at 34 executions between January 2010 and December 2015; operated under peacetime legal architecture and produced more visible judicial processes: defendants had named lawyers (though access was restricted), public verdicts were read in the Revolutionary Court system, and Mizan published charge sheets.

The 2026 executions at Naqadeh and Karaj show a compressed timeline (Maroufpour held since March 2021 without execution for five years until a wartime acceleration) and a dawn-execution slot that matches the 1988 pattern rather than the 2010-2015 model. Wartime has shifted the judicial pace toward the 1988 template.

Consensus view: Iran Human Rights (IHR, Oslo-based monitoring NGO) and Amnesty International's Iran team both document that executions under moharebeh (enmity against God) and armed-rebellion charges in Kurdish-majority provinces follow a distinct pattern from drug-trafficking executions: trials are held inside detention facilities rather than public courts, defence lawyers are excluded from pre-trial interrogation periods, and convictions rest primarily on confessions taken during prolonged solitary confinement.

Hengaw's documentation of Zaleh's trial lasting 'only a few minutes' is consistent with this pattern across 47 cases IHR tracked between 2020 and 2025 in West Azerbaijan province.

Counter-view: Iran's Mizan News Agency, the judiciary's official outlet, argues that Zaleh and Maroufpour were convicted on armed rebellion and attempted assassination charges supported by physical evidence and witness testimony, not solely on confession. Mizan's published charge sheet includes the attempted assassination count that Hengaw and Euronews did not initially report, and Iran's judiciary maintains that the proper courts reviewed and confirmed all convictions before execution.

Key tension: Whether the wartime emergency legal architecture Iran has applied since 2026 has formally altered the evidentiary threshold for armed-rebellion convictions in border provinces, or whether these cases are processed under pre-war statute with the same procedural deficiencies that have characterised PDKI-linked prosecutions for four decades.

Sources:Euronews·HRANA

Mentions:Amnesty International →Ramin Zaleh →Karim Maroufpour →Naqadeh Central Prison →Democratic Party →Mizan →Iran →Gholamreza Khani Shakarab →Qezel Hesar Prison →HRANA →Euronews →Karaj →Iran Human Rights →Norway →West Azerbaijan →Kurdistan →Hengaw →

First Reported In

Update #105 · Khamenei keeps the uranium; House pulls the vote

Euronews· 22 May 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Naqadeh dual, two Iraqis, a Turk at risk

The 20 May execution of two Iraqi nationals on espionage charges (ID:3497) established the foreign-national execution track; the Naqadeh executions of Zaleh and Maroufpour extend it to PDKI-linked Kurdish prisoners.

Occurred 21 May 2026

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This Event

Naqadeh executes two Kurdish PDKI prisoners

The wartime execution track now widens beyond the foreign-national espionage cluster into PDKI-linked political charges in the Kurdish northwest.

Led to

Turkish court annuls CHP leadership vote

The CHP leadership annulment on 21 May (event 7) removes Turkey's diplomatic bandwidth for the Shakarab demarche that the Naqadeh execution pattern (event 6) makes more urgent.

Occurred 21 May 2026

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Iran hangs its first wartime spy

Naqadeh executions (ID:3573) established the wartime judicial register that the Kian case extends at a faster arrest-to-execution pace.

Occurred 24 May 2026

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Iran hangs a 15th uprising protester

The Amnesty 200+ execution register (ID:3573) is the running total against which Akbari Feyzabadi's execution as the 15th January-uprising case is placed.

Occurred 25 May 2026

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Iran hangs Turkish national, toll rises

Amnesty register passed 200 (ID:3573); the 26-27 May cluster of 6 executions and 1 shooting extends this milestone run.

Occurred 26 May 2026

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Amnesty: 39 executions since war began

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.

Occurred 28 May 2026

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Different Perspectives

China

Beijing has not publicly commented on the dual Oreshnik launch. China's declared position of urging restraint and dialogue sits awkwardly alongside its continued economic ties with Russia; the weapons escalation tests whether Beijing's neutrality framing can survive a European IRBM normalisation event.

IAEA

Director General Grossi condemned the ZNPP reactor-6 turbine building strike and stated "there should be no attack of any kind from or against the plant." The agency confirmed normal radiation levels but has not resolved attribution; Rosatom CEO Likachev warned the region is "one step closer to an incident."

Turkey

Ankara hosted Istanbul Round 2 at Ciragan Palace on 2 June and secured a 1,200-for-1,200 prisoner exchange, consolidating Turkey as the war's sole diplomatic venue after Rubio confirmed US mediation has ended. Erdogan's leverage over both parties grows with each round.

European Union

EU Ambassador Mathernova answered Lavrov's evacuation demand with "We stay in Kyiv. We stay with Ukraine." The Verkhovna Rada approved the EUR 90bn EU loan on 28 May; the EUR 9.1bn first tranche, the EU's first explicit defence-procurement financing, arrives mid-June.

United States

Rubio declared US mediation stagnated on 22 May and confirmed no talks were occurring, then received Lavrov's evacuation demand three days later without ordering embassy drawdown. Washington's leverage now runs through the GL 134C sanctions cliff on 17 June rather than any active diplomatic channel.

Ukraine

Zelenskyy called Russia's 2-3 day ceasefire counter-offer at Istanbul Round 2 "shortsighted" and submitted a full peace memorandum covering EU membership, international guarantees, phased sanctions relief and frozen-asset reparations. Kyiv's position is that a partial ceasefire freeze aids Russian reconstitution; only an all-domain 30-day pause is acceptable.