One in all Iran’s most distinguished human rights advocates is warning that the Iranian authorities is utilizing the aftermath of its 12-day struggle with Israel to escalate repression towards its personal residents — significantly political and civil activists.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, in a video message to ABC Information, warned {that a} surge in executions and widespread arrests because the struggle started reveals that the regime is utilizing the second to deflect from a long time of alleged repression and failed coverage, with the purpose to “unfold worry and terror.”
“We at the moment are witnessing the intensification of the struggle between the Islamic Republic and the folks of Iran — a struggle that is been occurring for 46 years,” Mohammadi stated.
Whereas Iranian authorities have publicly celebrated what they name a “victory” over Israel, Mohammadi rejects that declare.
“I merely do not consider this,” she stated. “Warfare weakens the very instruments wanted to attain human rights and democracy — like civil society. I consider that with the Islamic Republic nonetheless in energy after this struggle, our work and our combat have now grow to be much more tough.”
She warned that the regime, “now weakened,” has tightened its grip on civil liberties, turning on alleged traitors from inside.
Iranian authorities, whereas acknowledging injury to components of their nuclear amenities and infrastructure, insist they continue to be sturdy and unified. State-affiliated media have framed the current wave of arrests and executions as obligatory measures to guard nationwide safety, alleging infiltration and espionage linked to Israel’s Mossad intelligence company.
Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi is seen on this picture from a video message to ABC Information.
ABC Information
Mohammadi spoke from her residence in Tehran, the place she is defying a authorities order to return to Iran’s infamous Evin Jail following pressing, life-saving surgical procedure. Mohammadi, who’s serving a 13-year, 9-month sentence, was granted a medical furlough from the jail, the place most of the nation’s dissidents and political prisoners are held.
She and different activists have expressed specific concern over the situation and destiny of Evin’s prisoners following Israel’s June 23 missile strike on the power. In accordance with Iran’s judiciary spokesperson, at the very least 71 folks had been killed within the strike, which the United Nations Human Rights Workplace condemned as a “gross violation” of worldwide regulation. Israeli Protection Minister Israel Katz stated Israel hit “regime targets and companies of presidency repression” throughout Tehran, together with Evin.
Whereas Mohammadi additionally condemned the strike, she warned that what has adopted could pose an excellent larger human rights risk.
Mohammadi, who was on furlough on the time of the assault, advised ABC Information she has spoken extensively with prisoners and their households.
“After the assault, the state of affairs inside Evin grew to become extraordinarily securitized,” stated Mohammadi, who all advised has been handed greater than 36 years of jail time on a number of expenses together with committing “propaganda exercise towards the state” and “collusion towards state safety” — vaguely outlined nationwide safety offenses generally utilized by authorities to criminalize peaceable dissent.
“Prisoner transfers at the moment are occurring below closely militarized circumstances.” Mohammadi stated, “with full sniper protection (and prisoners) shackled with each handcuffs and leg irons.”
On this image obtained from the Iranian Mizan Information Company on June 25, 2025, rescuers sift via the rubble inside within the Evin jail complicated in Tehran, Iran, that was by an Israeli strike.
Mostafa Roudaki/mizanonline/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Following days of uncertainty, Iran’s Prisons Group introduced that detainees had been transferred to different prisons throughout Tehran Province. State media reported that many had been moved to amenities together with Qarchak Jail and Larger Tehran Jail.
“The state of affairs inside each prisons is extraordinarily worrying,” Mohammadi stated, describing the transferred inmates as “war-affected detainees” now subjected to what she known as “extreme repression.”
A supply near the households of a number of political prisoners, who requested that their identify not be used as a result of worry of reprisals, advised ABC Information that circumstances in Qarchak Jail are “insufferable” and “akin to torture,” citing overcrowding, an absence of meals and consuming water, poor sanitation, and inadequate entry to primary requirements.
Three political prisoners — Golrokh Iraee, Reyhaneh Ansari and Varisheh Moradi — issued a joint assertion from Qarchak Jail, saying, “We don’t think about right now’s struggling of our personal to be larger than the struggling imposed on the folks of Iran.”
Mohammadi advised ABC Information that she is looking for renewed worldwide scrutiny of Iran’s remedy of its personal residents.
“I consider our state of affairs has grow to be much more harmful for the folks than it was earlier than the struggle, and we should increase our human rights actions,” she stated. “I hope worldwide human rights organizations will refocus their particular and specific consideration on the repressions now being carried out in Iran after the struggle — together with the difficulty of arrests, prisons, torture, pressured confessions, after which the executions.”
Mohammadi additionally warned that primarily based on “clear proof and stories,” she expects that the federal government’s crackdown on civil society, significantly younger folks and activists, is more likely to “grow to be much more extreme” within the coming days.
Regardless of the regime’s efforts to silence dissent, Mohammadi stated she stays dedicated to her activism, whilst strain mounts on her, her household, and buddies. A member of her help staff advised ABC Information that she has acquired repeated cellphone calls demanding her return to jail, and that intelligence brokers have summoned, interrogated, and harassed her family and friends in what seems to be an effort to isolate her.
Her staff additionally says Iranian monetary authorities issued an official order to grab Mohammadi’s Nobel Peace Prize award cash — 17 billion toman or roughly USD $400,000 — echoing an analogous tactic used towards fellow Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi in 2009.
“I need to see an finish to the Islamic Republic — a repressive, theocratic, and authoritarian system that’s misogynistic, unreformable, and essentially dysfunctional,” Mohammadi’s stated. “However I’m towards struggle — as a result of it drains the power and capability of the Iranian folks, civil society, and pro-democracy activists.”
Nonetheless, she stays hopeful.
“For many years, we have been combating for freedom, democracy, and equality — enduring repression, imprisonment, executions, and torture. However we have by no means backed down,” she stated. “Till the day democracy is achieved — I can’t cease.”
