Soona Samsami: The campaign is a calculated effort to terrorize society before the next revolt can take shape.
By NCRI-US Staff
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8, 2026 — Iran’s ruling establishment is using executions, fast-track trials, forced confessions, state propaganda, and intimidation at home and abroad to crush dissent and prevent another nationwide uprising, a major Reuters investigation published Thursday shows.
The investigation found that the regime’s security apparatus, judiciary, and state-controlled media are operating in concert to impose a climate of fear following the January 2026 uprising. Reuters interviewed more than 75 human rights experts, lawyers, and Iranians.
At least 34 people arrested in connection with the January protests have been executed since March 19. Thousands have been jailed, while five executions took place within the past 10 days.
Closed-door proceedings, coerced confessions, and state broadcasts depicting protesters as terrorists or foreign collaborators have turned the judicial and media apparatus into instruments of repression. In one Isfahan district case, 12 defendants were sentenced to death in a single closed hearing; seven have been executed.
The crackdown has also extended beyond Iran. Reuters documented threats against dissidents’ relatives, canceled passports, frozen assets, denial of consular services, and pressure on Iranians living in Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia.
Responding to the Reuters investigation, Soona Samsami, the NCRI’s U.S. Representative, said: “The campaign is not only retaliation for the January uprising. It is a calculated effort to terrorize society before the next revolt can take shape.”
“For decades, the Iranian regime has calculated that it can execute political prisoners, torture detainees, kill protesters, and suppress successive uprisings without paying a meaningful international price,” she added, saying “accountability is long overdue.”
Repression as a Strategy of Survival
In an October 7 letter to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) for the transitional period, cited Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Eje’i as saying that the judiciary had adopted a “wartime posture.”
The judiciary has demanded accelerated handling of cases as the regime increasingly treats political dissent as part of a broader war against its survival.
Reuters reached a parallel conclusion. Its investigation found that hardline elements increasingly view the confrontation as a “hybrid war” requiring action on both foreign and domestic fronts.
That doctrine helps explain why peaceful protest and opposition to the ruling establishment are increasingly portrayed as collaboration with foreign enemies.
Amnesty Identifies the Chain of Command
Amnesty International has meanwhile identified senior officials responsible for the machinery of repression.
In research highlighted Thursday, Amnesty mapped the chain of command behind crimes committed during the 2022 nationwide uprising and identified 87 Iranian officials who should face criminal investigations.
Amnesty said Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity while crushing the uprising, including unlawful killings, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and torture.
Many of those officials remain in positions of authority, and some have advanced within the state hierarchy. Amnesty said this entrenched impunity helped enable further deadly repression during the January 2026 uprising.
The organization is calling on the UN Security Council to refer Iran’s situation to the International Criminal Court and on the UN General Assembly to establish an international criminal justice mechanism.
Call for International Accountability
Mrs. Rajavi’s October 7 letter urged the United Nations to move beyond denunciations and confront the regime’s policy of executions and mass repression.
“I urge you to lead an international initiative,” she wrote, calling for action to “combat impunity in Iran.”
She called for an immediate halt to executions and protester killings, an international criminal justice mechanism, prosecution through universal jurisdiction, and unrestricted access for international investigators.
The NCRI President-elect also urged governments to condition economic, diplomatic, and political relations with Tehran on an end to executions and the killing of protesters.
The Reuters investigation documents how that machinery is being deployed again. Amnesty has identified officials who warrant criminal investigation, while Mrs. Rajavi has called for international action to end the cycle of impunity.
The question for Western governments is whether they are prepared to impose consequences before the regime turns the same machinery against the next uprising.
About the Iranian Resistance
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is a coalition advocating a democratic, secular republic in Iran. Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI’s President-elect for the transitional period, has outlined a Ten-Point Plan for a future democratic Iran. The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), is the NCRI’s principal organized movement.