Executions and arrests: mass arrests begin in the country that was subjected to aggression

Iran has been tightening its internal security measures, using executions and mass arrests. An Iranian human rights group has recorded 705 arrests on political or security charges since the start of the war with Israel.

Iranian authorities have stepped up internal security measures across the country with mass arrests, executions and troop deployments, particularly in the restive Kurdish region, officials and activists say, following a ceasefire deal with Israel.

Days after the Israeli airstrikes began on June 13, Iranian security forces launched a campaign of mass arrests, accompanied by an increased presence on the streets around checkpoints.

Israeli and American politicians, as well as Iranian opposition groups in exile, had hoped that the Israeli and US military campaign against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and internal security forces, as well as nuclear facilities, would provoke a mass uprising and overthrow the Islamic Republic, The Guardian notes. Although many Iranians have expressed discontent with the government, there has been no sign of any significant protests against the authorities.

However, one senior Iranian security official and two other senior officials briefed on internal security issues said authorities were focused on the threat of possible internal unrest, particularly in Kurdish areas.

The IRGC and Basij paramilitary forces have been put on alert and the focus is now on internal security, a senior security official said.

The official said authorities were concerned about Israeli agents, ethnic separatists and opposition groups in exile.

Activists inside the country are keeping a low profile, The Guardian reports. “We are being extremely cautious at the moment because there is a real concern that the regime could use this as a pretext,” said a Tehran-based human rights activist who was jailed during mass protests in 2022. The activist said he knew of dozens of people who had been summoned by the authorities and either arrested or warned against any form of dissent.

Iranian rights group HRNA said on Monday that it had recorded the arrests of 705 people on political or security charges since the war began. Many of those arrested were accused of spying for Israel, HRNA said. Iranian state media reported that three of them were executed on Tuesday in Urmia, near the Turkish border, and the Iranian-Kurdish rights group Hengaw said they were all Kurds.

One official briefed on security said troops had been deployed on the borders of Pakistan, Iraq and Azerbaijan to stop what the official called terrorists from infiltrating. Another official briefed on security acknowledged that hundreds had been arrested.

Iran's mainly Sunni Muslim Kurdish and Baluch minorities have long been a source of opposition to the Islamic Republic, opposing the Persian-speaking Shia government in Tehran, The Guardian reports. Iran's three main Kurdish separatist groups, based in Iraqi Kurdistan, have said some of their activists and fighters have been arrested and described widespread military and security crackdowns by Iranian authorities.

Ribaz Khalili of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDP) said IRGC troops were stationed in schools in Iran's Kurdish provinces for three days after the Israeli strikes began, going door-to-door searching for suspects and weapons. The guards also took defensive measures, evacuating an industrial area near their barracks and closing off major roads for their own use as they brought in reinforcements to Kermanshah and Sanandaj, two major cities in the Kurdish region.

A member of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), who gave her alias as Fatma Ahmed, said the party had counted more than 500 opposition members detained in Kurdish provinces since the airstrikes began. Ahmed and a representative of the Kurdish Komala Party, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said checkpoints had been set up in Kurdish areas where people were physically searched, as well as their phones and documents.