Executive Summary: The Architecture of Contemporary Repression (2022–2025)

The Islamic Republic of Iran is engaged in a unified, systemic campaign of domestic repression that has significantly intensified since the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police, which catalyzed the nationwide “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising. In the subsequent period spanning 2024 and 2025, the regime shifted its enforcement methods from primarily kinetic street violence to sophisticated structural violence, integrating the judiciary, the security apparatus (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC, and Basij), and the commercial sector to crush dissent.

This period is defined by two critical trends: judicial weaponization and the codification of gender control. The regime has dramatically escalated its use of the death penalty, executing at least 975 people in 2024, a 17% increase over the previous year, with 90% of these executions deliberately obscured from public view. This tactic includes the strategic laundering of political killings through non-political charges, overwhelmingly utilizing drug-related offenses. Simultaneously, the state has adopted punitive legislation, such as the Chastity and Hijab Bill, which mandates smart surveillance and leverages economic coercion (fines, employment bans, and denial of government services) to enforce compulsory gender norms.  

The architecture of repression is sustained by the IRGC, which remains the central operational enforcement body, wielding significant political and economic power. The Judiciary, especially the Revolutionary Courts, functions as the primary tool of terror, ensuring long prison sentences and capital punishment for protesters based on confessions extracted under torture. Recognizing the systematic nature of these abuses, the international community has established the UN Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) with a specific mandate to preserve evidence for future criminal accountability proceedings.  

The Judicial Apparatus of Terror: Escalation of the Death Penalty

The judicial system of the Islamic Republic, particularly the Revolutionary Courts, functions not as an impartial arbiter of law but as a central pillar of state control. The system has transformed capital punishment into a political tool used to maintain fear, suppress dissent, and institutionalize state violence.  

The Statistical Reality and the Mechanism of Opacity

The scale of capital punishment reached an alarming peak in 2024. Iran executed at least 975 people during the year, marking a 17% increase compared to the 834 executions recorded in 2023. This total represents the highest number of recorded executions in the country in more than two decades.  

Crucially, this quantitative escalation was accompanied by a deliberate policy of opacity. Transparency regarding state killings plummeted, with only 95 executions (less than 10% of the total) announced by official sources in 2024. This figure is a sharp decline from the 15% disclosed in 2023 and the 33% average reported between 2018 and 2020. Consequently, 90% of all executions (880 individuals) included in the report were not announced by the authorities.  

This precipitous decline in transparency, coupled with the overall execution spike, suggests a calculated government policy aimed at masking politically motivated violence. The regime is actively undermining human rights monitoring by using obfuscation to dilute international focus on its use of capital punishment against protesters and dissidents. By reducing the visibility of political executions, which typically attract specific, high-level international condemnation, the authorities can continue their systematic repression while claiming that the majority of capital sentences address common crime. This strategy represents structural planning designed explicitly to evade external accountability.

Weaponizing Drug Charges and Targeting Dissent

The regime has strategically leveraged drug offenses to facilitate the high execution numbers and obscure the political nature of the crackdown. Drug-related executions reached at least 503 people (51.6% of all executions) in 2024. This surge is dramatic, particularly when compared to 126 drug executions in 2021 and an average of only 24 per year between 2018 and 2020. Consistent with the policy of opacity, only 3% (15 individuals) of these drug-related executions were announced by official sources.  

The extraordinary, statistically unprecedented increase in drug executions signifies a policy decision to use capital punishment as a tool of social and ethnic control, extending beyond mere judicial laundering of statistics. The high number of Afghan nationals executed—at least 80 in 2024, compared to 16 in 2022—points to the use of capital punishment to disproportionately target marginalized communities, often caught in the drug trade due to socio-economic precarity. By executing vulnerable individuals, including at least five people documented as suffering from psychosocial and intellectual disabilities, such as the protester Mohammad Ghobadlu, the regime utilizes drug laws to clear space in prisons and maintain order in marginalized areas, effectively avoiding the direct political fallout associated with executing known human rights defenders.  

Despite the focus on drug charges, the repression of dissent remains explicit. At least 31 people were executed on security-related charges, defined by the Revolutionary Courts as moharebeh (“enmity against God”) and efsad-fil-arz (“corruption on earth”), charges frequently used against protesters and political prisoners. This group included at least nine Kurdish political prisoners. Two “Woman, Life, Freedom” protesters, Mohammad Ghobadlu and Reza Rasayi, were executed for murder charges. The US Department of State reported credible information that executions are carried out against prisoners who were forced to confess under torture and subsequently faced unfair trials, with death sentences frequently issued by the Revolutionary Courts, which were responsible for at least 534 executions in 2024.  

Institutional Perpetrators and Mechanisms of Systemic Violence

The state’s capacity for severe repression is maintained by specific security, paramilitary, and judicial organizations that operate with complete impunity, ensuring that systematic violence is an integrated feature of governance.  

The Security-Judiciary Nexus: IRGC and Basij

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) plays a central and foundational role in the enforcement of political repression. The IRGC is tasked with maintaining internal security and defending the regime against perceived domestic and foreign threats, simultaneously operating as a powerful military, political, and economic force. The organization is responsible for overseeing various repressive activities, including the suppression of protests and surveillance of opposition figures. The extent of the IRGC’s power is evidenced by its control of an estimated 20% to 40% of the Iranian economy.  

The Basij, a paramilitary force operating under the IRGC, serves as the instrumental street and community enforcement arm. The Basij is deployed to quell protests and has been involved in violent crackdowns, using force against students, women, and opposition activists. Members of the Basij, who include underage recruits, receive significant benefits, such as preferential access to government jobs and services, which institutionalizes their repressive role within the state bureaucracy.  

The existence of the IRGC’s extensive economic base and its members’ high-ranking presence within government positions means that the preservation of internal security—the crushing of dissent—is directly tied to protecting its vast financial interests and political power. This architecture is protected by guaranteed impunity. Credible reports detail systemic abuses, including arbitrary or unlawful killings, disappearances, torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, and arbitrary arrest or detention. The regime has taken no credible steps to identify or punish officials who committed these abuses. This lack of accountability is not an oversight; it is a structural guarantee. Since the perpetrators (IRGC/Basij) are the very entities tasked with preserving the regime’s control, any attempt at accountability would necessarily expose the systemic corruption and financial networks of the security state.  

Post-Conflict Crackdowns and Transnational Repression

The regime utilizes periods of geopolitical tension to intensify domestic repression, framing the crackdown as a necessary measure of national defense. Following the June 2025 hostilities with Israel, Iranian authorities initiated a “terrifying crackdown” under the guise of national security, leading to the arrest of over 20,000 people, including dissidents, journalists, and human rights defenders, since June 13.  

This massive wave of arrests confirms a strategy of deliberately conflating domestic political dissent with foreign-backed espionage or national insecurity. The external crisis provided the rhetorical justification needed to deploy the prepared security and judicial infrastructure, allowing the state to neutralize perceived internal threats swiftly and decisively under a smokescreen of emergency measures. Furthermore, participants in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement continue to face arbitrary arrest, sentencing, torture, and execution.  

The state’s violence extends beyond its borders, taking the form of transnational repression. In July 2025, the European Union (EU) imposed new sanctions against individuals and a criminal network responsible for serious abuses, including extrajudicial, summary, and arbitrary executions and forced disappearances against dissidents and opponents abroad. Specifically targeted was the Zindashti network, an organization linked to the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), involved in assassinations of Iranian dissidents in neighboring countries, such as Turkey.  

Legislative Control of Identity: Gender Apartheid and Targeting of Vulnerable Populations

In the wake of the 2022 protests, the Islamic Republic responded by abandoning ad hoc policing in favor of a sophisticated, legally codified system of gender control. This system utilizes advanced digital surveillance and economic leverage to institutionalize the persecution of women, girls, and LGBTQI+ individuals.

Codifying Gender Control: The Chastity and Hijab Bill

The newly drafted Chastity and Hijab Bill transforms compulsory compliance with dress codes into an institutional requirement enforced through pervasive surveillance and stringent economic penalties. The state utilizes smart surveillance systems managed by the Law Enforcement Command (Faraja) and mandates the collection of camera footage from all public service providers—including banks, stores, passenger transportation companies, and town officials—to identify women who remove their headscarves in public or cyberspace.  

This legislation weaponizes economic livelihood to enforce gender conformity. Adherence to chastity and hijab is now a strict and mandatory prerequisite for various aspects of employment, including recruitment, promotion, advancement, and the receipt of privileges in government agencies, as well as in governmental and non-governmental educational and research institutions. Furthermore, compliance in the workplace is a condition for issuing and renewing operating licenses for private institutions. For example, lawyers who fail to observe the hijab are explicitly prohibited from entering courts and prosecutor’s offices, demonstrating how even legal professionals can be professionally paralyzed for non-compliance.  

Collective Monitoring and Financial Punishment

The bill mandates “collective monitoring,” effectively decentralizing the function of the Morality Police by coercing the commercial sector and the public into becoming informants. Internet taxi applications, such as Snapp! and Tapsi, are required to implement a system that enables drivers to report passengers not wearing a hijab or improperly covered. Drivers who comply with this reporting mandate are exempt from fines associated with non-compliance violations themselves.  

Violations result in severe punitive fines and the immediate deprivation of essential government services upon failure to pay the monetary penalty. Non-payment of cash penalties, which progressively increase up to 165 million tomans for subsequent offenses, results in the deprivation of several critical services. These include the issuance or replacement of passports, driver’s licenses, vehicle license plates, and permission to leave the country.  

The Chastity and Hijab Bill represents a transition from physically enforced control to a system of digital and economic authoritarianism. By linking religious compliance directly to economic participation (jobs, business licenses) and basic citizenship rights (travel documents, identification), the state ensures that defiance results in deep socio-economic exclusion. This system of self-policing and collective coercion is a far more powerful and scalable tool than visible street arrests, minimizing visible state presence while maximizing effective state control.

Persecution of Sexual and Gender Minorities

The new legislation further entrenches the persecution of sexual and gender minorities. Under Iranian law, same-sex conduct is already subject to extreme penalties, including flogging and the death penalty for men. The new Hijab Bill actively mandates that the State Broadcasting Agency (IRIB) develop television and radio programming countering efforts that work “against the foundation of the family” and promote “promiscuity and homosexuality”. LGBTQI+ rights activists have expressed alarm that this section will further promote hostile state policies and increase social and political insecurity and violence targeting these individuals.  

Accountability and International Response

The international community has recognized the systematic nature and gravity of the human rights violations, moving toward concrete mechanisms for documenting evidence and imposing targeted punitive measures against the agents of repression.

Independent International Fact-Finding and Documentation

The UN Human Rights Council established the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on the Islamic Republic of Iran to thoroughly and independently investigate alleged human rights violations related to the protests that began in September 2022, focusing specifically on abuses against women and children.  

A crucial element of the FFM’s mandate is the instruction to “collect, consolidate, analyse, record and preserve evidence of such violations,” specifically ensuring that all collected evidence is accessible “for use in any independent legal proceedings”. This specific instruction on evidentiary integrity signifies a deliberate, long-term strategy that operationalizes the concept of universal jurisdiction. By collecting evidence in real-time and establishing an integrity chain, the FFM directly confronts the structural impunity enjoyed by the IRGC and the Judiciary, setting the stage for future international criminal accountability proceedings for officials responsible for state violence.  

The mandate is further supported by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, a role currently held by Mai Sato since July 2024, who continues to monitor the escalating repression and advocate for upholding the rights of all Iranians.  

The Sanctions Landscape: Targeting Repression Infrastructure

The US and EU maintain coordinated sanctions designed to target both the regime’s economic base and its specific human rights enforcement entities.

The EU implements restrictive measures related to serious human rights violations, including asset freezes, restrictions on admission, and specific prohibitions on equipment used for internal repression, such as telecommunications equipment. This policy has matured by focusing sanctions directly on the physical and personnel infrastructure of abuse. In July 2025, the EU imposed new sanctions targeting eight individuals and the Zindashti network (MOIS-linked) for their direct role in the  

transnational repression of opponents and activists abroad, including involvement in extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances. This strategic refinement attempts to surgically degrade the regime’s capacity for cross-border assassinations and domestic surveillance by increasing the operational cost and risk for the individuals responsible.  

US sanctions are extensive, targeting Iran’s energy sector, financial sector (including the Central Bank), and key governmental components, including the Supreme Leader and the IRGC. These broad and specific sanctions aim to restrict funding used to support domestic repression and regional proxies.  

Conclusions and Recommendations

The data confirms that the Islamic Republic of Iran has transitioned its repressive policies into a permanent, integrated, and sophisticated architecture of control following the 2022 protests. The state relies heavily on judicial brutality—characterized by statistical escalation and the strategic obfuscation of executions—while simultaneously deploying digital surveillance and economic coercion to enforce gender control and suppress dissent. The guarantee of impunity for the IRGC and the Revolutionary Courts remains the core structural mechanism of this system.

To effectively address this systemic crisis, the international community must move beyond condemnation toward coordinated, actionable pressure designed to undermine the regime’s structural guarantees of impunity and its operational capacity for repression.

1. Mandate Renewal and Funding for Accountability: Continuous, robust support and funding must be secured for the UN FFM and the Special Rapporteur. Priority must be placed on protecting the mandate for evidence preservation and dedicating resources to processing testimony related to the Chastity and Hijab Bill abuses and the judicial laundering of executions.  
2. Targeted Sanctions on Judicial Impunity: Expand EU and US human rights sanctions to specifically target judges, prosecutors, and high-level officials within the Revolutionary Courts and prison systems who issue death sentences based on forced confessions and those responsible for the policy of obscuring execution statistics (i.e., prison and judiciary spokespersons).  
3. Digital Accountability and Corporate Liability: Demand rigorous scrutiny from international technology companies and application developers operating in Iran to ensure their platforms are not being weaponized for state-sponsored collective monitoring and gender persecution (e.g., adherence to the mandate for internet taxi apps to report women). Sanctions should be implemented against corporations complicit in providing digital surveillance tools or facial recognition technology to the Iranian security state.  
4. Diplomatic and Legal Pressure on Transnational Repression: Implement coordinated international legal strategies to prosecute individuals belonging to transnational repression networks, such as the MOIS-linked Zindashti organization, by leveraging principles of universal jurisdiction. Diplomatic pressure should be maintained on host countries to dismantle the regime’s capability to conduct proxy assassinations and forced disappearances abroad.  
5. Protection of Marginalized Groups: International monitoring and reporting must prioritize and specifically challenge the use of capital punishment under drug charges, highlighting the statistically disproportionate use of these sentences to target ethnic, religious, and socio-economically marginalized communities as a form of structural violence.

Political Repression & Human Rights Abuses

• Political Repression in the Islamic Republic of Iran – Wikipedia
  Overview of systematic political suppression, imprisonment, and censorship in Iran since 1979.
• Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran – Iran Human Rights
  NGO report documenting executions and judicial killings in Iran.
• Iran’s New Hijab Law: Controlling Women’s Bodies – Femena
  Analysis of Iran’s 2025 hijab law expanding surveillance, fines, and punishments against women.
• Wave of Oppression After Hostilities with Israel – Amnesty International
  Amnesty condemns crackdown on dissent following clashes with Israel.
• World Report 2024: Iran – Human Rights Watch
  Human Rights Watch annual assessment of civil liberties and abuses in Iran.

UN & International Investigations

• Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran – OHCHR
  UN mission investigating violations during protests and state repression.
• Fact-Finding Mission on Iran – Impact Iran
  Civil society coalition reporting on Iran’s human rights violations.
• UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran – Wikipedia
  Background on the UN expert monitoring Iran’s human rights record.
• Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran – OHCHR
  Official UN mandate page for the Special Rapporteur’s work on Iran.

Government & NGO Reports

• Iran 2024 Human Rights Report – U.S. Department of State
  U.S. government report detailing widespread repression and abuses in Iran.
• EU Sanctions Iran for Transnational Repression – Eunews
  EU response to Iran’s targeting of dissidents abroad with new sanctions.

Sanctions & Illicit Activities

• EU Sanctions Map
  Interactive tool showing sanctions regimes applied by the European Union, including Iran.
• U.S. Sanctions on Iran – Congress.gov
  Congressional Research Service brief outlining U.S. sanctions against Iran.
• FinCEN Advisory on Iran’s Illicit Oil Smuggling & Shadow Banking
  U.S. Treasury alert on Iran’s use of oil smuggling and shadow networks to evade sanctions.