One in every of Iran’s most distinguished human rights advocates is warning that the Iranian authorities is utilizing the aftermath of its 12-day war with Israel to escalate repression towards its personal residents — notably 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 battle 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 concern and terror.”
“We are actually witnessing the intensification of the battle between the Islamic Republic and the folks of Iran — a battle that is been happening 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 imagine this,” she stated. “Struggle weakens the very instruments wanted to realize human rights and democracy — like civil society. I imagine that with the Islamic Republic nonetheless in energy after this battle, our work and our combat have now turn into much more troublesome.”
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 services and infrastructure, insist they continue to be robust and unified. State-affiliated media have framed the latest 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, a minimum of 71 folks have been killed within the strike, which the United Nations Human Rights Workplace condemned as a “gross violation” of worldwide legislation. 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 might pose an excellent better human rights menace.
Mohammadi, who was on furlough on the time of the assault, informed 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 informed has been handed greater than 36 years of jail time on a number of fees 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 are actually taking place beneath 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 through 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 have been moved to services together with Qarchak Jail and Higher 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 referred to 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 concern of reprisals, informed ABC Information that circumstances in Qarchak Jail are “insufferable” and “akin to torture,” citing overcrowding, an absence of meals and ingesting 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 take into account in the present day’s struggling of our personal to be better than the struggling imposed on the folks of Iran.”
Mohammadi informed ABC Information that she is asking for renewed worldwide scrutiny of Iran’s therapy of its personal residents.
“I imagine our state of affairs has turn into much more harmful for the folks than it was earlier than the battle, and we should develop 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 battle — together with the difficulty of arrests, prisons, torture, pressured confessions, after which the executions.”
Mohammadi additionally warned that based mostly on “clear proof and experiences,” she expects that the federal government’s crackdown on civil society, notably younger folks and activists, is prone to “turn into much more extreme” within the coming days.
Regardless of the regime’s efforts to silence dissent, Mohammadi stated she stays dedicated to her activism, at the same time as strain mounts on her, her household, and pals. A member of her help crew informed ABC Information that she has obtained 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 crew 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 wish to see an finish to the Islamic Republic — a repressive, theocratic, and authoritarian system that’s misogynistic, unreformable, and basically dysfunctional,” Mohammadi’s stated. “However I’m towards battle — as a result of it drains the energy and capability of the Iranian folks, civil society, and pro-democracy activists.”
Nonetheless, she stays hopeful.
“For many years, we have been preventing 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.”
