Iran Human Rights: 604 executed as 1,895 face spy charges

Iran has carried out at least 604 executions by early October, according to the Oslo-based nonprofit Iran Human Rights. The organization tracked 16 espionage defendants, 33 protesters, and 13 prisoners from banned groups among those put to death between January and September 2026.

The judiciary reports 1,895 active cases involving individuals accused of cooperating with Israel or other hostile states. This total includes 94 media workers. Police previously announced 21,000 arrests following the June 2025 conflict, while at least 50,000 people were detained during the nationwide protests in January 2026.

Saeid Golkar, an associate professor of political science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, noted that the killing of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28 illustrated genuine vulnerabilities in Iran's intelligence agencies. He stated that the regime historically uses perceived security threats to justify political repression and expand its coercive apparatus.

David Barnea, the former director of Mossad, said he approved the entry of dozens of agents into Iran in the weeks before the June 2025 war. Speaking at a conference on October 22, Barnea claimed that Israeli intelligence released footage of agents with a Mossad logo shortly after the war began to trigger mass arrests. He said the strategy shielded genuine assets, as thousands of unconnected individuals were detained.

Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, described the espionage threat as very real following the US and Israeli wars. She emphasized a distinction between covert intelligence gathering and dissent, noting that authorities increasingly treat political opposition and independent reporting as extensions of foreign intelligence activity.

Iran's Ministry of Intelligence declared in May that enemies were waging a hybrid war by combining espionage, sabotage, and hostile media. Judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei has invoked wartime conditions to argue for urgent security measures and accelerated punishments for alleged collaborators.

The United Nations fact-finding mission stated that authorities committed crimes against humanity during their most violent crackdown since the revolution. The UN recorded 19 people hanged in espionage-related cases between June and December 2025. Amnesty International reported at least 34 executions linked to the January protests by October 13, including five between September 30 and October 5.

Authorities have warned that sending images or information to networks deemed hostile, such as BBC Persian, can result in prison sentences of 10 to 15 years and heavy fines. Combined with other offences, these acts can lead to charges of corruption on Earth, which carry the death penalty. The government also designates Starlink satellite internet as a tool of war used for espionage and drone operations.

Iran imposed a near-total internet shutdown on 90 million residents for 20 days during the January protests and 88 days at the start of the current war. Officials cited the need to protect national assets from cyberattacks and disrupt hostile drones. The global internet remains severely filtered, and authorities have warned of further disruptions in case of military escalation.