A coalition of former ambassadors, MPs and senior religious leaders have issued a stark warning over what they describe as a ‘massacre unfolding in plain sight’ in Iran.
In a strongly worded letter, the signatories accuse the Iranian regime of ramping up executions as a brutal method of silencing dissent—with a staggering 1,200 people put to death so far this year, including 200 in September alone, marking the bloodiest month since the notorious 1988 prison killings.
Currently, there are more than 50 political prisoners on death row, including three women.
The letter urges the United Nations and democratic nations to intervene immediately, warning that inaction could pave the way for a chilling repeat of the mass executions that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives nearly four decades ago.
Jim Risch, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tells the Daily Mail that the Iranian Regime’s greatest fear is its own people, made clear as day by the number of executions. He emphasized sanction enforcement on Iran.
‘Iran prioritizes terrorism over serving its citizens, and as a result, it has ramped up internal repression, once again making the Iranian people the first victims of the regime’s destructive agenda,’ said Risch.
A senior administration official, reacting to the letter and human rights abuses in Iran, said that they support the Iranian people’s struggle against their government.
‘The regime unjustly executes more people than any other country, persecutes members of religious and ethnic minority groups, and uses tactics like arbitrary arrest and torture, and other violations to intimidate political opponents and squash dissent,’ they said.
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International reports that Iran now holds the title of having the highest number of executions per capita in the world.
In 2024 the group reported that Iran accounted for 64 per cent of all recorded executions worldwide. Iran recorded at least 972 executions that year, ranking it as the world’s leading executioner after China among countries with publicly available data.
That same research shows that China carried out over 1,000 executions, Iran carried out around 972, followed by Saudi Arabia with approximately 345, Iraq with 63 and Yemen with 38.
The letter writes that on September 3, Amnesty International cautioned of history repeating itself with the 1988 massacre.
UN expert Professor Javaid Rehman characterized the mass executions as clear evidence of crimes against humanity and potential genocide.
Today, Iranian authorities are reportedly demolishing mass grave sites, seemingly attempting to eliminate traces of these historic abuses.
The letter is backed and signed by seventeen international dignitaries, including Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, a veteran US national security official, John Bercow, former Speaker of the UK House of Commons and Peter Altmaier, who served as Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs.
The letter urges immediate international action, calling on UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk to speak out more forcefully against Iran’s wave of executions.
The signatories also demand that democratic governments push for Iran’s human rights abuses to be referred to the UN Security Council and that the regime’s leaders face concrete consequences.
Victoria Coates, Vice President at the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy and former deputy national security advisor to President Trump, framed the letter as a grim vindication of longstanding concerns.
She described the regime in stark terms, saying it ‘does not hesitate to ruthlessly eliminate any who dares disagree with them.’
‘Given what the mullahs are willing to do to their own people with the means they have, there is an unacceptable risk they would use a nuclear weapon against the United States or Israel,’ Coates said, warning of what could come in the future.
