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Argentinian Outlet Seúl: The Song of Ghezel Hesar Prison

Written by Mohammad Sadat Khansari
Six PMOI members executed in Ghezel Hesar Prison in spring 2026, Vahid Bani Amerian, Mohammad Taghavi, Babak Aliyur, Pouya Ghobadi, Akbar Daneshvarkar, Abolhassan Montazer
Six PMOI members executed in spring 2026, Vahid Bani Amerian, Mohammad Taghavi, Babak Aliyur, Pouya Ghobadi, Akbar Daneshvarkar, Abolhassan Montazer, singing a resistance hymn in Ghezel Hesar Prison

In a deeply emotional essay published by the Argentinian digital outlet Seúl, journalist Osvaldo Bazán recounts the final days of six Iranian political prisoners executed in 2026 for being members of the Resistance Units affiliated with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.

The article centers on a haunting video filmed inside Ghezel Hesar Prison in which the prisoners sing revolutionary hymns before their executions. Bazán portrays them as symbols of resistance against the Iranian regime, emphasizing their education, ideological conviction, and refusal to seek clemency. He especially highlights figures such as engineer and former regime loyalist Akbar Daneshvarkar and physics instructor Vahid Bani-Amerian.

The piece also condemns what the author sees as the indifference of Western media, Argentine activist circles, and international institutions toward executions and repression in Iran. Through letters written by condemned prisoners and fellow detainees, the article frames their deaths not as defeat, but as a deliberate act of political defiance and sacrifice.

A translated version of the article follows:

“The Ballad of Ghezel Hesar Prison”

By Osvaldo Bazán
Published by the Argentinian digital outlet Seúl — May 16, 2026

I think that after so many weeks together here in the newsletter, we’re familiar enough now that I can ask you for something. Before reading today’s edition, it would be good if you first listened to this song. Don’t cheat, because otherwise you’ll miss a large part of what I want to tell you today.

Maybe, depending on whom you follow, this video has appeared on one of your social media feeds lately.

Maybe you simply scrolled past it.

I say “on social media” because neither Clarín, nor La Nación, nor — of course — Página/12 mentioned the issue. Only Infobae, amid its endless flood of information, published two articles about what I now want to explore further.

Who are those six people?

Their names will mean nothing to you.

Where are they?

In Ghezel Hesar Prison, in Iran.

When are they singing?

In the last week of February.

What are they singing?

“Oh, I swore by my blood; the tyrant’s throne will shatter. I will tear open the vault of the sky and build what truly matters! I am the storm, the uprising, the wave, the scream, the flame. I am a rain of fire upon you. Oh executioner, hear my name!”

Why are they singing?

Because they knew they were going to die.

And that is exactly what happened.

Among the group of six men who knew they were going to die, there was no fear, no doubt. There was conviction — reflected in the ending of the letters left behind by one of them, Babak Alipour, revealed after the hangings: “Ready! Ready! Ready!”

That same conviction appears in the letter “A Choice for Freedom,” left behind by another prisoner, Akbar Daneshvarkar, in which he wrote:

“If I had to walk this path again, I would declare war on oppression and the oppressor from the very first day, with the slogan: Death to the oppressor, whether the Shah or the Supreme Leader! For the freedom of my people, I will give my life and pay the price… My head will never bow.”

Another of those hanged, Vahid Bani-Amerian (34), was an elite graduate with a degree in Electrical Engineering from Khajeh Nasir University — an institution that is extremely demanding academically in Iran — and also held an MBA. He taught physics through online courses, and in one tweet he can be seen teaching, almost like a Persian-language Sheldon Cooper.

Akbar Daneshvarkar (59), meanwhile, spent eight years in the regime’s prisons. He too was an elite engineer, but his story is especially remarkable. In his youth, he belonged to the regime’s paramilitary forces, but his rejection of the government’s injustices and contradictions led him through a profound ideological transformation: he went from being part of the system to becoming an opposition activist. He joined the Resistance Units of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran. He is the clearest example that people can evolve, think differently than before, betray their former selves in order not to betray their conscience. He was arrested on January 3, 2024.

Six men in the courtyard of a prison under a tyranny, singing: “I am a rain of fire upon you, executioner, hear my name!”

And surely the executioner heard the names Mohammad Taghavi and Akbar Daneshvarkar on March 30. And on March 31, those of Pouya Ghobadi and Babak Alipour. And on April 4, those of Abolhassan Montazer and Vahid Bani-Amerian.

And after hearing each name, at dawn, inside a filthy barracks with no witnesses except the henchmen of the tyranny, he hanged them.

“If Iran lies in ruins, devastated and torn apart, if for the soul of our homeland our lives are worn away, if over this sacred land the shadow of death spreads its shroud, if burning bullets rain down upon the tender petals, rise like thunder, show your weapons! Rise, mighty unity of warriors, break the stone walls!”

What the six men sang was the anthem of the PMOI (also known as the MEK).

What is the PMOI?

It is the principal Iranian opposition organization against the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its history began in opposition to the Shah’s regime. It was one of the pioneers of the 1979 revolution, though not aligned with Khomeini and his followers. In fact, many of the revolutionary leaders who spearheaded the protests had either been executed by the Shah or were imprisoned at the time of the revolution.

Khomeini then emerged as the “leader” of the revolution, even though he had done nothing to fight the monarchy. The leaders of the PMOI were released only two weeks before the 1979 revolution. That paved the way for Khomeini to take leadership and establish his supposed “Islamic republic,” which was neither Islamic nor a republic.

Very quickly, Khomeini began arresting them, killing them, repressing them, and even declared: “Those who did not vote ‘yes’ to my Constitution will not be allowed to participate in the presidential elections.” As a result, the PMOI’s candidate — who was highly popular at the time — was barred from running.

This continued until June 20, 1981, when the PMOI organized a massive demonstration in Tehran. That was the end of the dream. Guards opened fire on demonstrators, and arrests and executions followed. Tens of thousands were executed by Khomeini, many of them PMOI members or supporters.

Since 1981, the organization has been banned in Iran and heavily persecuted by the regime, which did everything possible to discredit it and even succeeded, at one point, in persuading Western governments to designate it a terrorist organization in order to appease the ayatollahs’ regime. That designation was later dropped. Today, only Iran still classifies it that way.

In fact, last year, on June 30, 130 members of the Argentine parliament signed the “Free Iran” declaration in support of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which includes the PMOI and seeks to establish a democratic, secular, non-nuclear Iran with gender equality.

The men who were singing endured years of torture, fabricated charges, and sham trials. In December 2024, together with other defendants, they declared that they would not negotiate for their lives, stating that they found “no path to justice other than the oppressed people of Iran, the brave rebellious youth, and awakened consciences. Our pursuit of justice is a source of pride.”

“I am the storm, the gale! Oh trembling willow, fear my name, your rivals before you hardened by the flame. I am faith, I am rebellion, standing firm with conviction, remaining to fight with even greater strength, a Resistance Unit in this land that swears to remain until the end…”

The usual pageantry of murderous regimes that cannot be inconvenienced in the name of international law — which, as everyone knows, has always operated with the courtesy and gentleness of eighteenth-century ladies sipping tea from porcelain cups.

The absurd accusations about events that never happened are commonplace: forced confessions extracted through torture, the usual machinery of murderous regimes that cannot be disturbed for the sake of international law. Yet that was not what happened in these six cases. Vahid and Abolhassan were arrested while preparing to act as Resistance Units against centers of repression such as bases of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Resistance Units reportedly operate daily against IRGC and Basij centers, as well as other institutions belonging to the regime’s repressive apparatus.

The example of these six heroes of the Resistance does not appear to have been in vain in a bleeding Iran.

For example, Ali Younesi is a computer engineering student at Sharif University of Technology. He is 26 years old and widely known in Iran as a prodigy in astronomy. He was arrested in 2020, but before his arrest he had won silver and gold medals in Iran’s National Astronomy Olympiad in 2016 and 2017, as well as a gold medal in the 2017 International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics.

He shared a cell with the six executed men, and last Tuesday he wrote a letter revealing the kind of people they were:

“On Monday, May 11, 2026, I received a notification dated February 23 under the title ‘February 11 Pardon,’ stating that the remainder of my sentence (seven months) had been pardoned. First, I have never requested a pardon and never will. Freedom is a stolen right; we do not beg for a stolen right, we fight to reclaim it. Second, I have role models: six proud cellmates who were executed, whose memory remains alive in my mind every day and every moment, and whose voices still echo in my ears. They did not negotiate their lives; shame on me if I negotiate my freedom. Third, Vahid Bani-Amerian said in his defense: ‘Are we the ones who should defend ourselves, or are you?’ I say the same: ‘Are you the ones who should forgive, or are we?’ Forgiveness and clemency belong first and foremost to grieving mothers and fathers. Therefore, grieving mothers and fathers, I hope you forgive me for any shortcomings, because you are the only authority from whom I seek forgiveness. All the suffering, torture, imprisonment, and hardships that continue are nothing more than a duty. It is thanks to the sacrifice of your children that we fight and will remain steadfast in this struggle. Fighting for the freedom of the Iranian people is not a source of regret or suffering, but the greatest honor.”

Ali was not the only one.

His cellmate, another Astronomy Olympiad medalist imprisoned at age 20, Amirhossein Moradi, made the same decision regarding clemency and wrote this week:

“The smiling faces of my dear friends — Vahid, Pouya, Babak, Mohammad, Shahrokh, and Abolhassan — at the moment of our separation and transfer from Evin to the slaughterhouse of Ghezel Hesar, who until their final breath refused the humiliation of surrendering to your vile government, remain before my eyes, and I imagine their mothers and fathers. As I explicitly declared in September 2024, I repeat now: I did not want and do not want your shameful amnesty. In response to the bloody massacres of December and January and the recent criminal executions, it is undoubtedly we, the oppressed people of Iran, who are in a position to forgive you — but rest assured, we neither forgive nor forget. Nor will I, until the people of Iran are freed from your evil, even think of my own release from captivity, nor will I beg you for it.”

We can all imagine the torture that awaited those young men after such letters.

Well, not everyone.

Those who do not imagine any of this are the members of the Argentine University Federation and the countless pro-Palestinian groups that fill Argentina’s universities, so preoccupied with a “fictional genocide” that they have no time for real murders. Not a single statement, not a letter, nothing. What happens in Iran stays in Iran.

“When I take my rifle, I will reclaim my home; in this forest I am the lion, to end the tyrant’s game. Behold the young heads on the gallows, high and bare; the weight of history’s pain has become ruin and despair.”

As of May 15, the Iranian regime had hanged between 600 and 650 people, according to the least pessimistic estimates of human rights organizations.

Of course, the Western press has barely mentioned these cases and continues to believe that if Iranians are not constantly in the streets, it is because they either do not want change or are satisfied with the regime. As if more than 30,000 protesters had not been killed in just two nights in January.

Perhaps, dear reader, to complete the feeling this newsletter may leave you with — not coincidentally titled This Is Not Normal — you might listen to one of the executed prisoners, Pouya, singing alone from prison.

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