This morning, Friday, August 8, 2025, Khamenei henchmen transferred a group of prisoners who had been moved from Evin Prison to Fashafouyeh prison in late June back to Evin prison.
However, five death row political prisoners—Vahid Bani-Amarian, Pouya Ghobadi, Shahrokh Daneshvarkar, Mohammad Taghavi, and Babak Alipour—were violently separated from other prisoners and taken to an unknown location.
Reportedly, they have been transferred to Ghezel Hesar Prison, where executions are carried out.
These prisoners were sentenced to death in December 2024 by Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, presided over by Iman Afshari, on charges of "membership in the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK)", "assembly and collusion against national security", and "armed rebellion against the state."
- Babak Alipour, 34, a law graduate, was arrested in January 2024. He had previously been arrested in November 2018 in Rasht (northern Iran) and served four years in prison.
- Pouya Ghobadi, 33, an electrical engineer, was arrested in March 2024. He had been previously arrested twice.
- Shahrokh (Akbar) Daneshvarkar, 58, a civil engineer, was arrested in January 2024.
- Mohammad Taghavi, 59, is a former political prisoner from the 1980s and 1990s. He was previously arrested in 2020 and spent three years in prison on charges of association with the PMO/MEK.
- Vahid Bani Amarian, 33, holds a master’s degree in management and was arrested in January 2024. Since 2017, he has been imprisoned multiple times, serving a total of four years.
The Iranian Resistance calls on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Human Rights Council, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, and other relevant UN bodies to take urgent action to determine the fate of these five prisoners and to save their lives, as they are at risk of imminent execution.
(via press release, edited since first publication; updated to fix formatting)
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