How the Islamic Republic has used executions to cling on to power

It’s not been a consistent thing across the 40 years of the of the Islamic Republic, but it certainly has had its very strong moments, and that’s primarily when there have been real hawks in the positions of power, such as head of the police, which is in fact the case now"...Memories of the 1988 bloodbath were stirred up recently when Ebrahim Raisi, one of the prosecutors involved in passing death sentences, won the 2021 presidential election. During his short-lived presidency (he died in a helicopter crash in 2024), the execution rate again “went up quite considerably as a response to the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom protests”, says Farmanfarmaian...Iranian authorities tend to go out of the way to make their executions of protesters conform with the letter of the law, says Farmanfarmaian, ensuring that victims have faced a trial and judgment in front of a judge – however brief or imperfect.