Thirty-eight years after Iran’s mass execution of political prisoners, the gallows are still being used for the same political purpose: to intimidate a population that challenges the Islamic Republic.
On Sunday, Iran executed Shahram Sadeghi in Karaj. He had been convicted of deliberately driving into police officers during the January 2026 anti-government protests. Iran’s judiciary said the Supreme Court had upheld his death sentence.
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His execution is not simply another case in Iran’s long record of capital punishment. It comes as the country marks the 38th anniversary of the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, when thousands were summarily executed after secret proceedings.
The Iranian opposition has documented the number of victims at more than 30,000, most of them members and supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.
But the significance of 1988 is not only the scale of the killings. It is the fact that the perpetrators were never held accountable.
In July 2024, Professor Javaid Rehman, then the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, published his final report on the atrocities. He concluded that the 1988 killings amounted to crimes against humanity, including murder and extermination. He also found considerable evidence that the killings, torture, and other inhumane acts against members and supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran were carried out with genocidal intent.
That finding should change how the world understands Iran’s continuing use of the death penalty.
The executions of 1988 were not an isolated episode. They were part of a system in which death became an instrument of political control. The absence of accountability helped create the conditions in which that practice could continue.
Today, the names and circumstances are different. The method is not.
Iran’s nationwide uprising of December 2025 and January 2026 again demonstrated the depth of public opposition to the Islamic Republic. What began with economic grievances quickly became a political challenge to the regime. The response again included mass arrests, lethal force, executions, and an unprecedented communications blackout.
The authorities insist that those sentenced to death are criminals or security offenders rather than political prisoners. But the pattern is difficult to ignore. Those facing execution include people arrested during or in connection with a nationwide movement challenging the political order.
Sunday’s execution is a stark reminder. According to Iranian authorities, Sadeghi was convicted of an attack on police during the January protests and of what they described as an “operational action” in support of Israel, the United States, and hostile groups. Reuters reported that the Supreme Court upheld the sentence before it was carried out.
Whatever the government’s allegations, the broader issue is the use of the death penalty in a political environment where fair-trial guarantees and independent judicial oversight remain deeply contested.
Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, condemned Sadeghi’s execution on Sunday and called on the UN Security Council to take urgent action to stop Iran’s executions. Her appeal came as the Iranian opposition marked the 38th anniversary of the 1988 massacre.
That is why 1988 matters today.
A regime that has never been forced to confront responsibility for mass executions has little incentive to abandon execution as a tool of repression. The continuity is not that the same people are being killed or that every case is identical. It is that the state continues to use the death penalty to confront political opposition.
The international community should therefore stop treating the 1988 massacre as a closed historical chapter.
The United Nations findings provide a basis for accountability. Governments that have imposed sanctions or travel restrictions on Iranian officials should ensure that perpetrators of the 1988 atrocities remain subject to scrutiny. International institutions should support independent investigations and preserve evidence that could eventually be used in judicial proceedings.
And the executions happening today should not be separated from that history.
When an Iranian prisoner is sentenced to death after being accused of participating in protests, the question is not simply whether one individual committed a crime. It is whether the judicial system is again being used to send a message to millions of others: challenge the regime, and the ultimate punishment awaits.
That is the lesson of 1988.
The Islamic Republic learned that it could kill thousands of political prisoners and survive without meaningful international accountability.
Thirty-eight years later, the world should not allow that lesson to be repeated.
Iran’s executions today are not merely a human rights issue. They are a test of whether the international community has learned anything from one of the darkest crimes of the Islamic Republic’s history.
The faces have changed. The victims are from a new generation.
But the warning from the gallows remains the same.
Nasser Razii is an Iran-born independent analyst and writer based in London. Over the years, he has worked extensively with British and European parliamentarians on issues relating to Iran, human rights, and democratic governance. He is also associated with the democratic Iranian opposition and has been actively engaged in advocating a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear future for Iran.
