Iran executes 604 prisoners as espionage crackdown widens
Judicial authorities accuse nearly 1,900 people of collaborating with foreign intelligence, while rights groups track a surge in death sentences and mass arrests since the 2025 wars.
By Rosa Wojcik ·
Iranian judicial authorities reported active cases against at least 1,895 individuals on October 28, charging them with cooperating with Israel or other hostile states. Among the accused are 94 media workers. Judiciary spokesman Ali Kazemi provided the figures, which reflect a sharp acceleration in national security prosecutions following the two military conflicts with the United States and Israel.
The current legal environment is defined by expedited processes and severe penalties. Authorities have implemented mass arrests, rapid trials, long prison terms, and asset seizures. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented instances of coerced confessions and the denial of effective legal defense. The crackdown targets alleged spies, but also includes protesters, journalists, lawyers, and ethnic minorities.
Execution rates have risen in tandem with the judicial changes. The United Nations fact-finding mission recorded at least 19 hangings in espionage-related cases between June and December 2025. Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based nonprofit, counted 16 espionage defendants executed between January and September 2026. That group also tracked 33 protesters and 13 prisoners from banned groups, bringing the total number of recorded executions by early October to at least 604.
Former Israeli intelligence director David Barnea stated that his agency approved the entry of dozens of agents into Iran before the June 2025 war. He said Israeli intelligence deliberately released footage of agents with a Mossad logo to trigger mass arrests of unconnected Iranian citizens. Barnea claimed the strategy shielded genuine assets, allowing almost all of them to remain unidentified despite the conflict.
Iranian officials describe the foreign threat as a "hybrid war" that combines espionage, sabotage, and economic pressure. The Ministry of Intelligence said in May that enemies are using hostile media and ethnic tensions to fragment the country. Judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei has invoked wartime conditions to justify urgent security measures and the punishment of alleged collaborators.
Saeid Golkar, an associate professor of political science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, noted that the regime uses perceived security threats to expand its coercive apparatus. He observed that authorities treat regime security and national security as interchangeable concepts. This approach allows the state to classify peaceful civic activism as a threat to survival, thereby justifying the expansion of security institutions.
Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, distinguished between espionage and dissent. She stated that criticizing the government or reporting on its failures does not constitute espionage. She added that Iranian authorities have increasingly blurred this line, treating political opposition as an extension of foreign intelligence activity. The government has labeled the January 2026 nationwide protests a coup orchestrated by Israeli and US intelligence.
Authorities have also targeted digital infrastructure. They view the Starlink satellite internet service as a tool of war used for espionage and drone operations. Tens of thousands of Starlink terminals were smuggled into Iran despite severe punishments for their use. The government imposed near-total internet shutdowns on 90 million people for 88 days at the start of the current war, citing the need to protect national assets from cyberattacks.
