{"id":346983,"date":"2026-07-28T20:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T19:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=346983"},"modified":"2026-07-28T20:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T19:30:18","slug":"why-irans-regime-keeps-executing-young-dissidents-and-why-it-keeps-failing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-resistance\/why-irans-regime-keeps-executing-young-dissidents-and-why-it-keeps-failing\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Iran’s Regime Keeps Executing Young Dissidents \u2014 And Why It Keeps Failing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Following
Following the execution of PMOI member Pouya Ghobadi, Resistance Units in his home town Sonqor paid tribute by setting up flowers in front of his house\u2014 March 2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three-minute read<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On July 22, the clerical regime in Iran hanged Mehdi Khanki<\/a> at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj. He was, by human rights organizations\u2019 count, the twenty-fourth person arbitrarily executed since March in connection with the January 2026 uprising \u2014 the latest in a lengthening roll call of young people put to death for ties to the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). A year earlier, Behrouz Ehsani and Mehdi Hassani were hanged on the same charge. This spring, at least eight more MEK-affiliated prisoners were executed within days of one another. Iran, which Amnesty International confirmed carried out over 2,150 executions in 2025 \u2014 the world\u2019s most prolific executioner per capita \u2014 is killing political prisoners at a pace not seen in a generation.<\/p>\n

But the disquieting fact about these executions is not their volume. It is their sociology.<\/p>\n

Most of those being hanged belong to a generation born<\/a> long after the MEK\u2019s organized cadres were driven underground or into exile. Their support for \u2014 and decision to join \u2014 the MEK came despite decades of censorship, repression, massacres, executions and torture, and despite a sustained campaign of fear designed to terrify an entire generation away from ever approaching it.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of films, thousands of hours of online content, millions of social-media posts, and an entire publishing industry were mobilized to portray the MEK as treasonous, cultish, and dead. Yet here, on the gallows, stand twenty-somethings who looked at all of it and chose defiance. The question is not why they were caught. It is why they exist at all.<\/p>\n

\n

Harrowing video shows Iranian protesters sing before being hanged https:\/\/t.co\/t188p28wt2<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/mrjiz0ZRIU<\/a><\/p>\n

— New York Post (@nypost) May 1, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n