An Iranian political prisoner sentenced to death on charges of “espionage and collaboration with a hostile state (Israel)” is at imminent risk of execution after being transferred to solitary confinement, the Norway-based rights group Hengaw said on Wednesday.
Gholamreza Khani Shakarab, 34, a former MMA champion, coach and international referee, was moved from a high-security ward in Tehran’s Evin Prison to solitary confinement in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, Hengaw said.
The case comes amid a widening wartime crackdown in Iran, where authorities have intensified arrests, executions and threats against dissent while repeatedly warning that criticism could aid the country’s enemies.
Rights groups and reformist commentators have increasingly warned that wartime conditions are being used to justify broader repression, tighter internet restrictions and harsher treatment of political prisoners at a time of heightened confrontation with the United States and Israel.
Hengaw said Judge Abolqasem Salavati of Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced Khani Shakarab to death in what it described as a highly opaque judicial process.
The sentence was upheld by Branch 39 of Iran’s Supreme Court and referred for implementation despite a recent request for judicial review submitted by his relatives, the rights group said.
A source familiar with the case told Hengaw that Khani Shakarab was denied access to a lawyer of his choosing during interrogation and trial and that the conviction was based solely on forced confessions extracted under pressure.
Hengaw said Khani Shakarab had been living in Turkey before his arrest and was detained last year by Iran’s security forces during a trip to Iraq for a religious pilgrimage at the request of a relative, before subsequently being transferred to Iran.
His brother, Esmail Khani, 43, was also arrested in the same case on political charges and is serving a prison sentence in Ardabil Central Prison, Hengaw added.
The case comes as Amnesty International said this week that executions worldwide rose to their highest recorded level in more than four decades in 2025, with Iran responsible for the overwhelming majority of the increase.
According to Amnesty’s annual report, Iranian authorities carried out at least 2,159 executions last year — more than double the previous year’s figure and by far the largest contributor to the global rise.
“A shameless minority are weaponizing the death penalty to instill fear, crush dissent and punish marginalized communities,” Amnesty Secretary General Agnès Callamard said in the report.
At least 2,707 people were executed across 17 countries in 2025, the rights group said in its annual report on the global use of the death penalty, describing the figure as the highest recorded since it began tracking executions in 1981.
Iranian authorities carried out at least 2,159 executions in 2025, more than double the figure recorded the previous year and by far the largest contributor to the global rise, according to the report.
“A shameless minority are weaponizing the death penalty to instill fear, crush dissent and punish marginalized communities,” Amnesty Secretary General Agnès Callamard said.
Drug-related executions drove increase
A resurgence of punitive anti-drug policies, Amnesty said, fueled much of the increase in executions globally.
Nearly half of all known executions in 2025 – 1,257 cases – were linked to drug-related offenses, including in Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Kuwait.
Iran accounted for 998 of those executions, the highest number among countries identified in the report.
Saudi Arabia carried out at least 356 executions in 2025 and made extensive use of capital punishment in drug-related cases, Amnesty said.
The organization also reported increases in executions in several other countries, with Kuwait nearly tripling its total from six to 17 executions. Egypt’s number rose from 13 to 23, Singapore’s from nine to 17 and the United States from 25 to 47.
The report did not include the thousands of executions Amnesty believes continued to take place in China, which it said remained the world’s leading executioner.
Executing states remain minority
Despite the sharp rise in executions, Amnesty said countries carrying out the death penalty remained “an isolated minority.”
China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, the United States, Vietnam and Yemen have all carried out executions every year for the past five years, according to the report.
Four countries resumed executions in 2025 – Japan, South Sudan, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates – bringing the total number of executing states to 17.
“It’s time for executing countries to step into line with the rest of the world and leave this abhorrent practice in the past,” Callamard said.
Amnesty highlights abolition efforts
The global trend toward abolishing the death penalty nevertheless continued, Amnesty said.
When the organization began campaigning against capital punishment in 1977, only 16 countries had abolished it. That number has now risen to 113, according to the report.
Vietnam abolished the death penalty for eight offenses including drug transportation, bribery and embezzlement, while Gambia removed capital punishment for murder, treason and other offenses against the state.
The organization also pointed to legislative efforts in Lebanon and Nigeria aimed at abolishing the death penalty, while Kyrgyzstan’s Constitutional Court ruled attempts to restore executions unconstitutional.
“With human rights under threat around the world, millions of people continue to fight against the death penalty each year in a powerful demonstration of our shared humanity,” Callamard said.
