Iran has carried out nearly 30 political executions since the start of the war with the US and Israel.

Iran executed two men on May 13, as an accelerated campaign of political hangings since the start of the war with the United States and Israel shows no signs of abating.

Ehsan Afrashteh, a cybersecurity and network security specialist, was hanged on charges of spying for Israel, Tehran's sworn enemy, earlier that day, REL reported, citing Iran's Radio Fard.

Late in the evening, Mohammad Abbasi, who had participated in the mass protests in January, was executed in Gezel Hesar prison on charges of murdering a security officer in Mallard, a city near Tehran.

Abbas's family was invited to the prison for what they were told was a visit, only to be turned back at the gate, according to the US-based human rights group FOOD. They later learned of his execution by phone.

The Iranian Mizan news agency described his hanging as "qisas," an Islamic concept that refers to execution as an act of revenge, carried out at the request of the victim's family.

The Islamic Republic released footage from his trial, in which he was accused of killing members of the security forces during the height of mass protests on January 8 and 9.

Weeks of demonstrations against Iran's clerical rulers erupted across the country in late December. Authorities responded with an unprecedented crackdown on protesters, killing several thousand people.

In Afrasteh's case, two sources who spoke to Radio Farda said he was contacted by a foreign intelligence service while visiting Turkey.

He notified Iran's Intelligence Ministry before returning home, only to be arrested at Imam Khomeini International Airport as soon as he landed and sent to prison, the sources said.

HRANA previously reported that Afrasteh's confessions during detention were "fabricated," that he denied the charges, that his family's property was seized, and that relatives were placed under surveillance.

Human rights groups and sources close to the family say Afrashtekh's case illustrates the Islamic Republic's use of forced confessions and military courts to eliminate perceived security threats.

'Political purge'

The executions are the latest in an increasingly intense series of hangings since March 18 - weeks after the United States and Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran.

Since then, at least 29 political executions have been confirmed. They fall into three broad categories: protesters who participated in mass demonstrations in January and were accused of moharebeh, or “enmity against God”; members or suspected members of the exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) convicted of armed rebellion; and those convicted of spying for the CIA or Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.

Human rights groups have condemned the trials of the executed. The Oslo-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said in April that many of the trials were characterized by “torture, forced confessions and a complete lack of due process.”

The Iranian Human Rights Monitor, a foreign group that documents human rights violations, characterized the pace of executions as a "political purge" that exploits wartime conditions.

“The regime’s priority is not external war, but internal repression,” the April statement said, noting that the number of political executions in the first six weeks of the war had already exceeded the total for the entire year of 2025.

Last month, the UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, called on Iran to "impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty" and release "arbitrarily detained" prisoners.

"I am astonished that - in addition to the already grave consequences of the conflict - the rights of the Iranian people continue to be taken away by the authorities, in harsh and brutal ways," he said.

Iran is one of the world's top executioners, hanging hundreds of people a year, many of them for drug-related crimes and murders.