The United Nations has issued a resolution condemning Iran for its alarming rate of executions. Meanwhile, the prominent dissident group, Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), has released a report accusing the Iranian government of executing 2,013 people between January 1 and December 15 under President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration.
According to the MEK report, this number significantly exceeds the 975 executions recorded by the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2024, which had been the highest annual tally since 2015. The group also recorded a similar execution count of 1,001 last year.
MEK documents shared with Fox News Digital suggest that a combination of factors—such as the plummeting value of the Iranian currency, widespread protests, internal political conflicts, re-imposed U.N. sanctions, and leadership rifts—have contributed to the rise in executions. This year’s figures, according to the MEK, mark the most executions since the 1980s.
During a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on September 24, 2025, President Pezeshkian accused the United States of committing a “grave betrayal.” (Image credit: Jeenah Moon/Reuters)
A spokesperson from the U.S. State Department criticized Iran’s persistent human rights violations, stating to Fox News Digital, “We strongly condemn the Iranian regime’s use of execution as a tool of political repression. For decades, the regime has subjected Iranians to torture, forced confessions, and sham trials, leading to unlawful executions. Today, innocent civilians are being scapegoated for the regime’s military and economic failures.”
The spokesperson further remarked, “The Trump Administration reinstated a policy of maximum pressure, moving away from the previous administration’s approach of imposing superficial sanctions while providing the regime with billions. Since January, we have targeted dozens of individuals and over 180 vessels in Iran’s shadow fleet to undermine the regime’s financial resources.”
Behnam Ben Taleblu, the Senior Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran Program, said there are more steps needed to be taken by Washington. He told Fox News Digital that the U.S. has “been lagging behind” other Western partners who have responded to Iranian human rights violations with sanctions and other measures, most recently Canada, which sanctioned four individuals after a protest in the Iranian city Mashhad in December.
“The lack of practical measures to support the Iranian people is a strategic own goal,” Taleblu said.
Taleblu noted that Iran “arrested over 21,000 people” following the 12-Day War in June, alongside a “political repression that is even much more expansive than ever before.” He said that the Islamic Republic “understands how weak it is,” and any efforts to appear more socially lenient, including regarding hijab laws, are an attempt to “retain their oligarchic political position in a post-Khamenei Iran.”
A view of the entrance of Evin prison in Tehran, Iran Oct. 17, 2022. (Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters)
Noting the prior Trump administration’s strong stance on Iran, Taleblu says that “it certainly can do better much more cheaply and more cost effectively than it thinks.” Taleblu said that one “simple” messaging strategy will present itself in March during President Trump’s Nowruz address, when he can “give an homage to the most pro-American, the most pro-Israeli population in the heartland of the Muslim Middle East.”
He added, “The imperative for Washington to support Iranian protesters… stands,” Taleblu said. “But that should be a constant in U.S. foreign policy, given the disposition of the Iranian street, which is almost entirely against the Iranian state. U.S. human rights policy towards Iran should not be limited to merely having social media accounts that are the stenographers for Iran’s decline into failed state status.”
The MEK has urged U.S. policymakers to recognize the Iranian people’s right to resist and overthrow the regime, which they claim is the only means for eliminating the country’s theocracy.
On Dec. 10, the European Parliament marked International Human Rights Day by calling for the world to take action against Iran on account of its execution campaign. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, addressed the parliament with her concerns that Iran is attempting to crush dissent. She urged that “all relations with the regime must be conditioned on the halt of executions,” with members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of Intelligence placed “on the terrorist list.”
Nooses with red roses are displayed during the Anglo-Iranian community rally to support the Iranian people’s push for a new revolution. Members of the Anglo-Iranian community, along with supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), commemorated the 45th anniversary of the revolution in Iran that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime and eventually let to a theocratic Islamic republic in 1979. (Loredana Sangiuliano/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Among those sentenced to death is Zahra Tabari, a 67-year-old engineer and mother who the MEK say was given her sentence after a “sham 10-minute trial… without her chosen legal representation.” MEK documents say Tabari was arrested because she held a banner reading “Woman, Resistance, Freedom.”
The total number of executions in Iran has doubled since October. At the time, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that Iran was murdering up to nine prisoners each day, which they called an “unprecedented execution spree.” In response, death row prisoners staged a hunger strike.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not offer comment on the report.
