Iran planning to execute 30,000 in repeat of horror 1988 ‘massacre' as part of desperate crackdown, insiders fear
Rattled supreme leader Ali Khamenei has ordered a surge in executions - turning hangings into public spectacles in a chilling warning to dissidents.
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Executions are often well-attended public events
Credit: AFP
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Mehdi Hassani has been executed by Iran's regime
Credit: NCRI
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Behrouz Ehsani was also killed by the regime
Credit: NCRI
It comes as callous mullahs yesterday hanged two political prisoners who had been jailed on trumped-up charges.
Mehdi Hassani, 48, and Behrouz Ehsani, 70, were killed in cold blood for daring to oppose the barbaric regime they were forced to live under.
Earlier this year, The Sun shared a
Ehsani meanwhile bravely
More on Iran
Iran has repeatedly unleashed lethal force on its own people - especially at times of crisis - in a sickening bid to stamp out rebellion.
Glaring vulnerabilities in the regime's grip on power have been exposed after Israel and the US launched a monumental effort to destroy its nuclear threat.
Executions and arrests are weaponised to scare dissidents, and it is feared panicked Ayatollah Khamenei is planning a similar plot to the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners.
The regime was also in turmoil that year after accepting a ceasefire with Iraq.
Most read in The Sun
Now, death sentences against those affiliated with the main democratic opposition, the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK), are being expedited as Khamenei scrambles for control.
Chillingly, state-run Fars News Agency - a mouthpiece of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - this month issued a public call to repeat 1998's inhumane massacre as the regime fears for its survival.
Dad set to be executed in Iran shares powerful audio message blasting regime from behind bars
British politicians and leading human rights lawyers have urged the UK government to intervene to prevent such an atrocity.
Alongside the
(NCRI), they
also criticised the focus on Tehran's nuclear programme, warning that it has overshadowed the worsening human rights crisis.
Baroness O'Loan DBE said: "Those threatening our national security are the same individuals planning atrocities in Iran's prisons. So, we must act, now."
Dowlat Nowrouzi, the NCRI's UK representative, told The Sun: "The international community's failure to hold the regime accountable for its atrocities, including crimes against humanity and genocide, has allowed the regime to enjoy impunity.
"It is long overdue to hold Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, and others accountable for committing these crimes.
It comes as one of Iran's longest-serving political prisoners has laid bare the dire situation in a handwritten letter shared with The Sun.
More than 100 armed guards raided the ward Masouri was on, beating prisoners before hauling them across the floor with handcuffs and leg shackles and bags over their heads.
Masouri has been exiled to the notorious Zahedan Prison - just days after penning a haunting letter warning a massacre is looming.
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Saeed Masouri has been in jail for 25 years
Credit: NCRI
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He shared a chilling handwritten letter from inside jail
Credit: SUPPLIED
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Four Iranian convicts hanging after a public execution in 2007
Credit: AFP
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Pictures show a man named Balal who was led to the gallows by his victim's family
He wrote: "Just as it happened in 1988, today we fear that the same path is being repeated, albeit with different language and methods.
"Back then, it was called the 'Death Committee'; today, it is 'Fire at discretion'.
"But this widespread repression and intensification of executions are not signs of strength—they are admissions of the regime's helplessness in the face of truth and the will of the people.
"Likewise, this so-called 'fire at discretion' is nothing but an attempt to conceal the depth of infiltration, decay, and structural collapse within the ruling system—failures they now seek to compensate for by exacting revenge on the people of Iran and their prisoners."
All contact between political prisoners and their families has now been cut off.
Ms Nowrouzi added: "The assault on Mr. Masouri is not an isolated incident.
"It is part of a broader campaign of escalating executions, arbitrary detentions, and systematic repression.
"The regime, emboldened by decades of impunity and inaction, is now openly signaling its intent to repeat the horrors of 1988.
"As Mr. Masouri warned in his message from prison, 'a crime is in progress,' and the world must not remain silent."
Iran's calculating mullahs meanwhile are refusing to hand the bodies of slain Ehsani and Hassani back to their grieving families.
How Iran is stifling critics after defeat to Israel
by Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital)
TYRANNICAL leaders in Iran have demanded citizens act as undercover informants to turn in anyone who dares oppose the regime, insiders say.
Panicked mullahs have also ordered "telecom cages" be installed around prisons as the regime
Political prisoners - largely
Insiders say their treatment is being weaponised to deter opposition.
The fight against repression has loomed large for decades in the rogue state - but the so-called 12-day war last month has made the barbaric Ayatollah more fearful than ever of being toppled.
Sources inside Iran told The Sun how a direct alert has been issued to the public, urging them to report any activity linked to resistance groups of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
Regime loyalists have been implored to act as informants - compiling detailed reports with photos, times, locations, licence plates and facial features of suspected individuals.
Orders were publicised in an official government news outlet - marking a distinct shift in the paranoid regime's usual strategy of covert suppression.
Insiders noted it points to the regime's growing perceived threat posed by the PMOI's grassroots operations.
The PMOI has long fought for a secular, democratic Iran, and is understood to be gaining traction amid frustration with economic hardship, political repression, and international isolation.
Insiders say they are instead planning to secretly bury them in a twisted bid to cover up their actions.
Hassani's devastated daughter, who bravely campaigned for her dad's release, wept as she told how they had not been informed of his execution.
In a harrowing video message shared with The Sun, she said: "They didn't grant him a final visit before the execution.
"None of us knew, not even my father, who had told my sister to visit him on Monday.
"I don't know what to say. I fought so hard. I had so much hope, so much… I still can't believe what has happened."
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the NCRI, has called on the United Nations to take "concrete and effective measures against a regime built on executions and torture".
Mrs Rajavi said: "They [Ehsani and Hassani] now join the eternal ranks of those who have given their lives in the struggle for freedom and justice.
"In what appears to be a desperate act during the twilight of his rule, Khamenei has perpetrated yet another grave crime - an effort to delay the inevitable collapse of his regime.
Ayatollah 'on his heels'
by Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital)
IRAN'S merciless regime is "fully on its heels" - leaving the Ayatollah's days numbered, a former US ambassador says.
But the West will not be able to topple Tehran's brutal dictatorship, Mark D. Wallace, CEO & Founder of United Against Nuclear Iran, warned.
The ex-ambassador to the UN said it will be down to the Iranian people - who have suffered outrageous repression for decades - to finally end the regime's rule.
Iron-fist fanatics have used violent and ruthless measures, including executions and torture, in a twisted bid to stamp out opposition and silence critics.
The regime's future now appears to be hanging by a thread, however, as it sits in a "combustible state" following the obliteration of its nuclear empire by the US and Israel.
Several of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's top military brass were wiped out in the 12-day war - leaving the barbaric ruler vulnerable.
Power held by Iran's terror proxies - including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen - has also been severely depleted.
Wallace told The Sun: "The regime isn't just wounded, they're fully on their heels."
"Far from securing his hold on power, this brutality only intensifies the outrage of the Iranian people and reinforces the determination of Iran's courageous youth to bring an end to this theocratic tyranny.
"Honour to these steadfast Mojahedin who, after three years of unwavering resistance under torture, pressure, and threats, fulfilled their solemn pledge to God and the people with pride and dignity."
It comes after The Sun reported how Iran's wounded regime
As Israeli missiles rained down on a nearby military site on June 16, panicked inmates at Dizel-Abad Prison in Kermanshah begged to be moved to safety.
But they were instead met with a hail of bullets from the regime's merciless enforcers in a "deliberate and cold-blooded act", a witness said.
Meanwhile, sweeping arrests are also plaguing Iran's population - with around 700 people understood to have been detained last month with reported links to a "spy network".
Iran has one of the most horrific human rights records in the world, and according to campaigners also holds the harrowing title for the highest execution rate.
Official records show that the number of executions last year reached 1,000 - the highest number in 30 years and 16 percent higher than the previous.
Insiders believe this year that distressing toll will be much higher.
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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei makes his first public appearance since the war with Israel on July 6
Credit: Getty
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A demonstrator takes part in a protest against the Iranian government outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles, California on June 23
Credit: Reuters
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