WALL STREET JOURNAL
As War With U.S. Eases, Iran Steps Up Hangings of Dissidents
Henna Moussavi
June 21, 2026

In the days before Iran’s regime hanged Nasser Bakerzadeh, the 26-year-old spoke of the normal life he would never return to. Bakerzadeh dreamed of returning to run his mobile-phone store, he told fellow inmates in the main prison of Urmia, a city in Iran’s northwest. Instead, he was executed for being an Israeli spy—a charge he denied and his lawyer said lacked any credible evidence. “He just wanted to live, to work, and to make his parents happy,” said Hamid Chapati, a former cellmate.  Bakerzadeh is one of at least 45 people executed in Iran this year on political charges, ranging from spreading propaganda to espionage, according to human-rights groups and Iranian state media…The rise in political executions is raising alarm about the fate of thousands of Iranians who are still in prison for participating in the January protests. READ MORE