Iran’s government has instituted an internet blackout for the past eight days. This prohibition only restricts external dissemination of information, but it still allows internal agency communications. This blackout coincides with escalating tensions following recent events, including a missile strike on the al-Udeid airbase in Qatar, which came after the United States targeted Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities.
The Iranian government has received an unusual amount of public criticism in recent months, especially for its human rights abuses. According to recent estimates, Iran executed more than 1,500 prisoners just last year. Amnesty International has called on the Iranian authorities to end systematic human rights violations, focusing attention on the imperative for accountability.
The recent hostilities in Iran, mostly exacerbated by public unrest in the form of anti-government protests, has led to constantly changing estimates of fatalities. Whereas one report estimates fewer than 2,000 of those killed were protest-related, a new report estimates that number may be well over 12,000. This discord over casualty figures highlights the ongoing difficulty in determining accurate information where access remains restricted by the government.
In a response to the protests, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated there is no plan to execute individuals in retaliation for dissent. He emphasized, “My message is: between war and diplomacy, diplomacy is a better way, although we don’t have any positive experience from the United States. Nevertheless, diplomacy is orders of magnitude better than war. His comments are an indication of the juggling act he is trying to perform between facing the pressure of domestic upheaval and international outcry.
Even with these guarantees, worries remain about potential deaths by execution. Erfan Soltani, the Iranian protester who received a death sentence, that has been stayed. The truth is that he remains in a deeply vulnerable position. Iranian judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i threatened harsh punishment in no uncertain terms. He insisted that any decisive action must be very quick and at just the right moment. “If we want to do something, we have to do it quickly, do it at the right time,” he stated.
On the international front, increased tensions have led foreign embassies to release statements soothing fearful constituents. The U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia has warned its personnel to be alert. They need to stay far away from military installations, especially with tensions with Iran escalating. Likewise, U.S. personnel stationed in Kuwait were given standing orders to avoid several military bases for the time being. Some members deployed to one of the largest U.S. military bases in the region—located in Qatar—were similarly ordered to evacuate.
With hostilities escalating, the UK government is now evacuating staff from Tehran, in part as a precautionary measure. An unnamed but high-ranking Iranian official issued a particularly chilling warning to neighboring countries that host American military installations. Sheikh Naeem Qassem said Iran could bomb these sites “if America starts a war.”
Against this backdrop, former President Donald Trump said he was promised. In exchange, he promised that Iran would cease to kill protesters lethally. As he remarked, “We’ve been told that the killing in [Iran] is over – it’s over – it’s stopped. However, there’s no plan for any actual executions to take place. I’ve gotten that info from an unimpeachable source. He remarked on the anticipated executions for that day, saying, “There were supposed to be a lot of executions today,” but added hope that they would not proceed: “the executions won’t take place – and we’re going to find out.”
With international observers watching the process every step of the way, their fate is far from certain. The Iranian government is under extreme pressure at home and is losing legitimacy by the day. As protests continue and calls for reform amplify, the future course of Iran’s political system remains uncertain.