Brutal Repression In Iran Intensifies With Fast Trials, Torture, Executions

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ranian regime judges are threatening swift trials and executions for detainees, and human rights activists say some prisoners have already been tortured and forced to sign confessions.

The chief of the Iranian judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, warned on Wednesday that the regime’s body count would be increased by rapid trials and executions for anyone who dares to join the protests. His remarks were widely broadcast by Iranian state media to intimidate the population.

“If we want to do a job, we should do it now. If we want to do something, we have to do it quickly. If it becomes late, two months, three months later, it doesn’t have the same effect. If we want to do something, we have to do that fast,” Mohseni-Ejei said to explain his enthusiasm for death sentences with minimal due process.

More information is leaking out of Iran thanks to Elon Musk’s Starlink making its services free for Iranians. Security troops are reportedly raiding homes across Iran to confiscate Starlink devices. The regime shut down the Internet and mobile phone services last Thursday, but on Tuesday it began allowing limited outgoing international phone calls.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) estimated 2,417 dead as of Wednesday, including 12 children, 10 bystanders who were not even participating in protests, and 147 people affiliated with the Iranian government.

HRANA added that 18,400 people have been detained, an especially grim statistic given Mohseni-Ejei’s threats of mass executions. The group said these estimates were “conservative,” given the difficulty of getting reliable information out of Iran.

Another estimate from Iran Human Rights (IHR) included 734 confirmed killings of protesters, but the group said that number was “based on information received from fewer than half of the country’s provinces and fewer than 10% of Iran’s hospitals,” so “the real number of those killed is likely in the thousands.”

Sources in and out of Iran told CBS News on Tuesday that the true death toll was over 12,000, and possibly as high as 20,000.

Several other sources said a death toll of between 10,000 and 12,000 was credible, given photos and videos trickling out of Iran that show hundreds of people dumped into open-air morgues with gunshot wounds.

One of CBS’s sources said regime agents are forcing their way into hospitals and terrorizing medical staffers into handing over the names of patients receiving treatment for protest-related injuries, an ominous sign that more arrests — and executions — will be coming if the Iranian theocracy wins its battle for survival.

“The information that we are receiving shows that the violent crackdown [against] the protests has probably been much worse than we can even imagine,” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, who leads the Norway-based activist organization Iran Human Rights. 

“The whole international community’s red lines have been crossed,” said Amiry-Moghaddam. “We have a mechanism called responsibility to protect civilians against grave human rights violations, against mass killings … so not only [the] United States, not only President Trump, but the European Union, basically all countries have a responsibility to stop these atrocities.”

He didn’t call for U.S. military action, but urged world powers to “provide Iranians with more means to communicate with the world, because this is what the regimes do — they shut off the internet. Basically, it’s like solitary confinement. They put Iranian people into solitary confinement and start torturing and killing them.”

He told CBS News his organization had received a video Monday night showing the aftermath of one purported attack by security forces that left 75 people dead in Mazandaran province, about a three-hour drive north of Tehran. Amiry-Moghaddam said he could not share the video or specific town where the alleged assault occurred as the information “can be tracked,” and would thus endanger his sources. 

“This is what indicates that the extent has been much worse than we anticipated,” said Amiry-Moghaddan. 

Amiry-Moghaddan also told CBS News many Iranians wouldn’t believe that narrative from their leaders.

“Iranian people are so fed up with the regime, and so desperate to come out of this system,” he said. “I remember that I used to ask many people, with different backgrounds, ‘Who would you support?’ And all of them basically say that we would support anyone who can remove the Islamic Republic. Iran is a country with a lot of different kinds of people, different opinions. Some would like to have monarchies, some are opposed to monarchy, but I think the priority is to remove this regime.”

Pahlavi has said he’s ready to return to lead Iran, despite not having been there since his father, the U.S.-backed shah, fled almost 50 years ago amid intense public outrage over his rule. He told CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell on Monday that the Iranian people “need action to be taken.”

“The best way to ensure that there will be less people killed in Iran is to intervene sooner, so this regime finally collapses and puts an end to all the problems that we are facing,” he said. 

HRANA also accused the Iranian regime of torturing prisoners to extract forced confessions, which were circulated widely by state media to make it look as if the protests were foreign-controlled sabotage instead of a sincere uprising.

Almost a hundred such confessions have been broadcast by state media over the past two weeks, representing an unprecedented surge in Tehran’s use of the sinister tactic. By comparison, Iranian state media broadcast about 37 suspicious confessions from prisoners facing the death penalty for sedition during the massive “Women, Life, Freedom” protests of 2022.

“These rights violations compound on top of each other and lead to horrible outcomes. This is a pattern that’s been implemented by the regime time and time again,” HRANA deputy director Skylar Thompson said.

The president’s national security team held a meeting at the White House on Tuesday to discuss his options, according to several sources familiar with the matter.✪