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Iranian freedom fighters who swore to fight against the Islamic regime to their last breath were today hanged after being systematically tortured, in a second day of state killings. A fellow freedom fighter said the high-profile nature of the hangings, at a time when the Iranian regime was being crippled by Israeli and the US bombings, indicated the Ayatollah and IRGC were more scared of a people’s rebellion than President Trump’s missiles.
Early today lawyer Babak Alipour, 34, and electrical engineer Pouya Ghobadi, 33, were executed by the ruling Islamic state. And yesterday Mohammad Taghavi, 59, who had been jailed and tortured many times by the former Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime, and fellow dissident Akbar Daneshvarkar, 60, faced the gallows.
Hanged for fighting for freedom: Pouya Ghobadi and Babak Alipour (Image: NCRI)
All were political prisoners, all were hanged at the infamous Ghezel Hesar Prison, 20 miles northwest of Tehran.
Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, which has established a democratic government in waiting, should the mullahs’ regime fall, said: “That the regime chose to hang these two martyrs for freedom at this juncture shows just how scared they are of an internal uprising.
“And they should be. This is a regime in its death throes. It knows full well that the ultimate threat to its survival comes from the Iranian people and the organised resistance.”
Statements attributed to two of the hanged men were quickly released. Mohammad Taghavi wrote: “As a freedom fighter, honored to serve under the proud banner of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, I swear to fight with all my strength until my last breath, to die standing, and with certainty in victory, to cry out: ready, ready, ready.”
Akbar Daneshvarkar wrote: “You know well and can be at ease that until my last breath, I will remain steadfast in my position, with my life in my hands for my homeland and people, unwavering and without the slightest deviation.”
Taghavi was jailed as a political prisoner in the 1980s and 1990s, was previously arrested in 2020 and sentenced to three years in prison on charges of affiliation with the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). Shortly after his release, he was arrested again in March 2024. He had spent a total of eight years in the mullah's prisons. Martyred PMOI member Akbar Daneshvarkar, 60, a civil engineer, was also arrested in January 2024.
Both men had been subjected to brutal torture in the notorious Ward 209 of Evin Prison. Ward 209 is a detention facility controlled directly by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It is infamous for holding political prisoners, journalists, and activists, often in prolonged solitary confinement to extract confessions, frequently employing advanced techniques known as "white torture" or sensory deprivation.
In December 2024, both men were sentenced to death on the charge of 'Baghi' (armed rebellion) for membership in the PMOI by the executioner judge Iman Afshari in Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran.
This court operates behind closed doors, without juries and with lawyers appointed by the regime.
Amnesty International has frequently condemned the court as an instrument of state repression, violating international law through systemic, "grossly unfair show trials" and the "weaponisation" of the death penalty.
In a Twitter Post following the execution of the two men Amnesty condemned their “arbitrary execution” and wrote: “According to information available to Amnesty International, authorities in Iran executed the men without providing them or their families and lawyers advance notice or allowing them to say their final goodbyes. Four other men who are sentenced to death in the same case are at grave risk of execution, All six men were convicted of “armed rebellion against the state” (baghi) on allegations of affiliation with banned opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).”
The sentences were subsequently upheld by the regime’s Supreme Court.
Regime-appointed judges accused the men of being present “in riots, urban actions, and confrontation with security forces”.
They added Taghavi was also a rebel organiser intent on “harming the country's security”.
According to FARS, the IRGC’s news agency: “Akbar Daneshvarkar and Mohammad Taghavi were sentenced to death on charges of assembly and collusion to commit crimes against the internal security of the country, committing effective harassing actions in support of the PMOI with the aim of overthrowing the system, and membership in the PMOI with the aim of disrupting the country's security”
Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political coalition of which the PMOI is a member) said: “The desperate clerical regime, in fear of the people's uprising, vainly attempts to delay the explosion of the people's anger for a short while by executing the bravest children of Iran.
“However, this only doubles the resolve of the rebellious youths and the fighters of the Liberation Army to overthrow the regime.”
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She added the criminal executions “amid a foreign war”, were a clear admission by the ruling mullahs that the main enemy of the regime is the Iranian people and the Resistance.
She called on the United Nations, its member states, and all human rights defenders to take immediate action to save the large number of PMOI and other political prisoners who remain on death row in Iran.
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