Britain’s politicians disagree on many issues. But there are also principles that command broad, cross-party support, chief among them the defence of universal human rights and opposition to tyranny. On Iran, that shared ground is becoming increasingly clear. In January, Iran witnessed its fourth nationwide uprising in under a decade. Millions of people, from Gen Z to grandparents, poured into the streets. It bore all the hallmarks of a nation crying for freedom. What followed shocked the world. A near-total internet blackout attempted to conceal the scale of the crackdown.
But images and testimonies emerged: rows of black body bags; mothers and fathers screaming in anguish as they searched for their missing children; protesters lying lifeless in the streets. Thousands were killed in a matter of days. Tens of thousands more were arrested. Their only crime was to demand change. Human rights organizations warned at the time that many detainees faced imminent danger. Those warnings have proved well-founded.
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Since mid- March, at least 25 political prisoners have been executed. These killings are not isolated acts; they form part of a deliberate campaign to terrorise a population that has already shown its willingness to rise up. The regime’s calculation is simple: to prevent another uprising by making the cost of dissent unbearable.
A significant number of those executed have been linked to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), long regarded by Tehran as its principal organized opposition movement. Others were young protesters detained during the January uprising. Many more remain on death row, and death sentences are being issued expeditiously. The message is unmistakable: if you protest again, you risk your life.
This pattern echoes one of the darkest chapters in Iran’s modern history—the 1988 massacre of around 30,000 political prisoners, many of whom were associated with the NCRI and the broader Iranian opposition movement. Today’s executions, while smaller in scale, follow the same grim logic: eliminating perceived threats at moments of vulnerability.
Yet the context has changed. The regime is weaker than at any point in recent decades, its authority eroded by successive uprisings and mounting internal and external pressures. At the same time, organized resistance inside the country has grown more resilient and more visible.
It is in this context that parliamentarians from across the United Kingdom will travel to Paris on June 20 to join a major international rally organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The gathering will highlight ongoing human rights abuses and demonstrate support for a democratic republic in Iran.
Source: Daily Express :: World Feed
