Saeed Masouri, An Iranian political prisoner who has been incarcerated for over twenty-five years, has written a letter from Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj exposing the process of issuing and executing death sentences in Iran, particularly in the case of political detainees. In this letter, he reveals the Iranian regime’s tactics for executing political prisoners and describes these actions as criminal.
Excerpts from the letter follow:
To all awakened consciences, especially human rights reporters, Ms. Mai Sato, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: The crime of execution includes other criminal preliminaries as well.
With twenty-five years of imprisonment, I am witnessing a wave of executions that is unprecedented in the past two or three decades. In the past month alone, over 170 individuals have been executed. It is often said that every criminal act is preceded by criminal preparations that remain hidden beneath the surface.
As a cellmate of countless prisoners who, over the past twenty-five years, have been sentenced to death and taken to the gallows, I have witnessed several recurring patterns in the cases of death row prisoners, especially those accused of political offenses (i.e., “acting against national security”).
In such cases, from beginning to end, the entire file is built by interrogators from the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC Intelligence Organization. Steps such as transfer to the prosecutor’s office, interrogation, and submission to court are purely formal and superficial.
Then the prisoner is taken to the prosecutor with that fabricated file and brought to court, giving the false appearance that all the legal procedures of a fair trial have been followed, with no involvement from the Ministry or the IRGC.
It is widely known that the so-called “work report sheet” (a case summary) prepared by the Ministry and IRGC is the sole basis for issuing both the indictment and the judge’s ruling. These so-called “judges” do not even read the case files.
There is no logical argument or credible evidence in the file, no opportunity for defense (as the trials last no more than ten minutes), and no access to the file for the attorney—contrary to Article 48 of their own Code of Criminal Procedure.
The verdicts are pre-written and merely announced
The head of Branch 33 of the Moghaddas Prosecutor’s Office, Ghanatkar, explicitly stated in the presence of political prisoners that the files of our two cellmates, Mehdi Hasani and Behrooz Ehsani, were confidential and secret.
“This case is confidential”—such a seemingly simple phrase clearly violates the defendant’s right to defend themselves against baseless accusations and fabricated charges.
Why are even those prisoners scheduled to be executed not allowed to know the reasons behind their executions, and why are their lawyers denied access to the files?
The only way to hide the lack of legitimate evidence is to declare the files secret and confidential…
…in hopes of coercing the accused into making forced confessions—sometimes televised or aired as so-called documentaries—while offering promises of avoiding execution or receiving a reduced sentence.The accused is thus placed in a dilemma: either they accept and make false confessions or face execution!!
But the regime does not stop there. It summons and threatens the family, saying that if their loved ones do not express remorse, make some kind of confession, or seek pardon, the execution is inevitable and beyond their control.
And if they are executed, the regime tells the families it is their own fault and that of the prisoner!!!
This method of forced confessions and portraying defendants as regretful and remorseful constitutes the criminal and inhumane preparations that precede the actual crime of execution and by enforcing it in each case, they pave the way for repeating the same process in future cases.
My message to you and to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is this: Has this blatant violation of human rights and the mass executions not yet warranted being raised at the UN Security Council?
Saeed Masouri
June 2025
Ghezel Hesar Prison
