The Iranian regime has launched a fresh escalation against political prisoners accused of supporting or being members to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). In the span of two days, the judiciary both notified one prisoner of a death sentence and reconfirmed the death sentences of six others—an unmistakable signal that Tehran is accelerating its machinery of political executions.
On December 6, 2025, political prisoner Karim Khojasteh was informed of a death sentence at Lakan Prison in Rasht. A 62-year-old industrial machinery engineer and former political prisoner from the 1980s, Khojasteh was arrested on March 13, 2025 at his workshop on the Anzali-Khomam road. He was tried on September 17, 2025 on the charge of ‘Baqi’ (armed rebellion) for supporting the PMOI, with the verdict delivered only months later. The timing and secrecy follow the regime’s well-worn pattern: detain, isolate, stage a sham trial, then produce a death verdict meant to terrorize society.
The next day, on December 7, 2025, the regime reconfirmed the death sentences of six political prisoners—Babak Alipour, Pouya Ghobadi, Vahid Bani Amerian, Mohammad Taghavi, Akbar (Shahrokh) Daneshvarkar, and Abolhassan Montazer—accused of PMOI membership. Their retrial on November 16, 2025 at Branch 26 of Tehran’s so-called Revolutionary Court was reduced to separate hearings lasting only a few minutes. These were not legal proceedings; they were administrative steps toward execution.
Sham trials, targeted biographies, and the regime’s political intent
The regime’s selection of targets underscores the political nature of this campaign. Among the six condemned prisoners are individuals with long histories of resistance and repeated arrests. Abolhassan Montazer, 66, a former political prisoner from the 1980s, suffers from heart, lung, and kidney diseases. Mohammad Taghavi, 59, is also a former political prisoner from the 1980s and 1990s and had already served time on PMOI-related charges. The regime’s insistence on death sentences against those who have endured decades of repression highlights a central objective: to erase living symbols of defiance.
Others on the list represent educated professionals in their 30s and 50s—engineers and a law graduate—suggesting the regime’s fear is not limited to a single generation or region. The judicial process itself, characterized by brief hearings and the dismissal of defense demands, further confirms that these verdicts are security decisions dressed in legal robes.
Khojasteh’s case echoes this pattern. A former political prisoner now condemned once again, he embodies the continuity of the regime’s strategy from the 1980s to today: criminalize affiliation with the PMOI, then employ the death penalty as the ultimate deterrent.
From death verdicts to imminent execution threats
This new wave of rulings fits into a broader, escalating assault on PMOI-affiliated prisoners. The regime recently transferred Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani, a 30-year-old political prisoner and boxing champion, to solitary confinement in Mashhad’s Vakilabad Prison on December 6, 2025, cutting communications in what the Resistance describes as a final prelude to execution. Arrested in January 2020 for supporting the PMOI following nationwide protests, he endured prolonged torture to extract forced confessions. Two other prisoners, Zahra Tabari and Ehsan Faridi, were recently sentenced to charges of supporting the PMOI.
There at least 18 political prisoners on death row for supporting the PMOI. The regime has already demonstrated its intent by executing two PMOI members, Mehdi Hassani and Behrouz Ehsani, in July. It is now signaling readiness for a larger-scale crackdown, with officials even invoking the “successful experience” of the 1988 massacre as a model to repeat.
The regime’s current path is therefore not a set of isolated legal cases but a coordinated campaign. The death sentence notifications, reconfirmations, and solitary confinement transfers all serve one political function: to intimidate a nation the regime views as on the verge of change.
The execution surge reveals fear, not strength
The regime’s assault on political prisoners is unfolding alongside an unprecedented nationwide execution spike. According to the Resistance, 335 prisoners were executed in November 2025, including seven women, with two public hangings. At least 44 more were hanged in just three days in early December.
This surge is the response by regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei to a society seething with rage against tyranny and corruption of the mullahs’ rule. The regime’s executions are a political weapon aimed at preventing another nationwide uprising, not a matter of justice.
The scale of executions during the presidency of the supposedly “moderate” Masoud Pezeshkian—more than 2,500 since July 2024—proves that regime’s killing spree is a confession of vulnerability before a defiant population and a growing organized movement for change.
A test for the international community
The cases of Karim Khojasteh and the six condemned prisoners are a clear and urgent test for the United Nations, the European Union, and global human rights defenders. The Iranian Resistance calls for immediate intervention to rescind these sentences and protect other prisoners on death row.
With at least 18 PMOI-linked political prisoners facing execution and the regime accelerating its broader killing spree, international inaction risks repeating the culture of impunity that enabled past atrocities. The regime’s objective is to manufacture fear; the world’s responsibility is to deny it that outcome by taking concrete action to save lives and hold the architects of these crimes accountable.