As the world’s attention remains fixed on the drums of war echoing across the Middle East, the Iranian regime has found, in the shadow of war and escalating external conflicts, a strategic opportunity and a key pillar for its survival to reinforce its weakened and fragile domestic front.
Under the cover of escalating regional tensions, Iran’s prisons have become open arenas for systematic purges and organized intimidation aimed at deterring a protesting society. This continues as urgent warnings from international human rights organizations, along with increasingly alarmed calls—even from state-run newspapers—for a temporary halt to executions out of fear of an imminent social explosion, continue to grow.
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Pezeshkian’s deception and state media’s admission of structural failure
While the regime’s primary domestic security priority is expanding the use of the gallows and deepening the atmosphere of fear, Iranian regime president Masoud Pezeshkian has been tasked with implementing a policy of deception and deflecting responsibility in an effort to contain society.
On July 20, 2026, the state-run Mehr News Agency published remarks by Pezeshkian in which he claimed: “The most important battlefield today is the economy and people’s livelihoods!”
However, what Iranian citizens are experiencing in practice is entirely contrary to these slogans, as the regime has completely ignored labor and professional protests while expanding the wave of executions through the use of the gallows.
As part of this effort to mislead public opinion, the state-run newspaper Donya-e-Eqtesad published an article on July 20 titled “Why Doesn’t Change Happen?” Without naming individuals directly, it pointed blame toward the regime’s supreme leader and the heads of the three branches of government, acknowledging the deadlock of structural reforms. It stated: “Beliefs that have taken shape over the years in the form of security and ideological priorities have now become a major obstacle to any reform… The path that has been followed has not been the right one, and a fundamental change in approaches and objectives is unavoidable.”
Iran’s prisons are witnessing the widespread transfer of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience to solitary confinement; a step widely regarded as a precursor to execution by hanging.
Within this context, human rights reports have documented the following major developments in July 2026:
Execution of political prisoner Mehdi Khanaki: In the early hours of Wednesday, July 22, the Iranian regime’s judiciary executed 26-year-old political prisoner Mehdi Khanaki, a law graduate, by hanging in Karaj. Khanaki had been wanted since the January 2026 uprising and was arrested on February 10. He was subjected to severe torture during detention, a matter that had been reported to the UN Special Rapporteur and international organizations.
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Fourteen prisoners were suddenly transferred to solitary confinement in Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan, with 12 facing the imminent risk of execution within hours. So far, four of them have been executed. Under the cover of war, the regime is using the gallows in an attempt to contain the country’s deepening and explosive social crisis.
State-run newspaper’s alarmed appeal: “Temporarily halt the executions!”
The extent of the regime’s fear of widespread public anger became evident in the unusual and unexpected position adopted by the state-run Ettelaat newspaper in its July 20 edition. The newspaper issued a direct and alarmed appeal to the head of the judiciary under the headline: “Temporarily halt the executions!”
Part of the appeal, reflecting deep concern within the regime’s decision-making circles over the possibility of a domestic uprising, stated:
“There will be time to carry out corporal punishments and executions, but the rapid increase in reports of executions and their growing number cannot be regarded as a positive sign or evidence of the government’s strength and control.”
These admissions show that despite media attention being dominated by external conflict, the Iranian regime’s greatest concern remains its fear of the majority of the population seeking its overthrow. The judiciary is attempting to intimidate them through the expansion of executions under the cover of escalating regional military tensions.
The failure of appeasement strategies and the need for a democratic alternative
Strategic assessments following recent developments indicate that international policies toward Tehran have failed, and this failure can be summarized in two key areas:
First: The failure of appeasement and military strikes
Experience has shown that neither negotiations and international policies based on appeasement nor foreign military strikes are capable of producing a lasting political solution or containing the regime because they ignore the principal driver of change.
Second: The need for a domestic democratic alternative
The fundamental flaw in international policies lies in ignoring the capacity of the Iranian people and the potential of a domestic democratic alternative—the only force capable of dismantling the system of Velayat-e Faqih from its roots, ending the destruction of Iran’s resources and wealth, and establishing lasting stability and freedom.
Current realities show that the external conflict fueled by the Iranian regime serves as nothing more than a tool to legitimize the gallows at home and to conceal the structural failure of the country’s economy.
No matter how much regional tensions escalate or how extensively the regime exploits them for propaganda purposes, they will never eliminate the fundamental realities confronting the overwhelming majority of Iranians: economic collapse, the growing number of executions, and the people’s determination to overthrow the system of Velayat-e Faqih and replace it with a national and democratic alternative.
