Jila Andalib, IT Specialist & Iran Political and Human Rights Analyst
In Gaza, even after the signing of a peace accord, executions continue in public view. In Iran, the machinery of death operates methodically and relentlessly. The link between these practices is not coincidence but intent. The death penalty, when used by dictators, is not about justice. It is about terror, domination, and the preservation of power.
Recent reports have confirmed that Hamas executed several men accused of collaborating with Israel. According to The Telegraph, blindfolded prisoners were brought forward, accused, and shot in public as a warning to others. The executions followed the signing of a peace agreement and were carried out to show that even peace does not limit Hamas’s iron grip. There was no fair trial, no transparency, and no legal defense. These killings were political theater, carefully staged to display control and instill fear. They showed that the regime’s authority rests not on governance or legitimacy, but on the willingness to kill.
This behavior mirrors the cruelty of Hamas’s masters in Tehran, where the ruling regime has turned executions into a daily instrument of repression. In Iran, someone is executed roughly every four hours. The death penalty has become the foundation of state control, a way to silence protests and crush any form of dissent.
Inside Iran’s notorious Ghezel Hesar Prison, more than 1,500 death row prisoners have launched a hunger strike to protest the continuous wave of executions. According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, this marks the second day of their collective strike. Their act of resistance is part of the wider “No to Execution Tuesdays” movement, which has now reached its 90th week. Every Tuesday, prisoners across the country refuse food and call on the world to recognize the horror unfolding behind the prison walls. Their message is simple: executions in Iran are not justice, they are tools of tyranny.
The hunger strike at Ghezel Hesar is one of the largest coordinated acts of defiance from inside Iran’s prisons. Even as their lives hang in the balance, these prisoners are choosing protest over silence. Their courage stands in stark contrast to the brutality of a system that survives by killing its own people.
What Hamas is doing in Gaza follows the same logic perfected in Tehran. In both cases, executions serve to silence dissent and preserve power through fear. Accusations replace evidence, and trials, if they occur, are meaningless. Timing is political, not judicial. Hamas carried out executions immediately after a peace deal, just as Iran often increases executions following protests or political unrest and this time after the 12-day war. Both use the spectacle of death as a signal that opposition will not be tolerated.
While Iran’s clerical regime is condemned globally for its brutality, it is equally alarming that one of Reza Pahlavi’s advisors publicly supported the death penalty in a recent tweet. Neither he nor the so-called “alternative” or “wannabe king” he represents have ever condemned the death penalty or said it should be abolished in a future Iran. Their silence speaks volumes. Iranian people have already rejected monarchy and dictatorship. They have no desire to return to either, and those who dream of restoring the old system have no chance of coming back to power.
If those who claim to offer a democratic alternative are unwilling to clearly oppose capital punishment, they reveal the same authoritarian mindset that the Iranian people have spent decades resisting. The death penalty in Iran has never been a neutral legal instrument. It has always been a weapon of political control, used to eliminate dissent and demonstrate the regime’s absolute power.
Executions under authoritarian rule are never about justice. They are about ensuring obedience through terror. In both Gaza and Tehran, the blindfolded victims and the hurried verdicts tell the same story: submit or die. The hunger strike in Ghezel Hesar and the 90th week of “No to Execution Tuesdays” show extraordinary courage by those who resist even at the threshold of death. Their struggle is a plea for the world not to remain silent.
The international community must take a clear and principled stand. Hamas’s executions are modeled after its masters in Tehran. Both must be condemned without hesitation. And any group or figure seeking to lead Iran’s future must commit to a total and unconditional end to the death penalty. Only then can justice, not vengeance, define a free and democratic Iran.