Statement by our Central Executive Board:
The Iranian regime continues to add a new violations every day to its record of practices that disregard universal human rights, the right to life, and the peoples' demands for freedom. Most recently, we have learned with profound anger and sorrow of the executions of Kurdish youths Ramin Zelleh and Karim Maroufpour, in Nagadeh Prison. They were completely deprived of any fair trial, having been subjected to online hearings that lacked any legal basis.
Taking advantage of regional conflicts and the current climate of war, the Iranian regime is liquidating domestic opposition at an unprecedented pace. In just the last three months alone, dozens of revolutionaries, intellectuals, and young activists have been executed. Notable cases include Kurdish politician Saman Mohammadi Khiareh who had spent 16 years in prison; Baluch youth Abduljalil Shahbakhsh, who was secretly hanged; and 19-year-old wrestler Saleh Mohammad, who was executed on the basis of confessions extracted under torture for his participation in the January 2026 protests.
This sweeping assault by the Iranian regime, which disproportionately targets all dissident segments of society whether Kurdish, Baluch, Azerbaijani, Arab, or Persian, is the result of a policy aimed at intimidating, silencing, and subjugating the peoples struggling for democracy, freedom, and equality in the country. This dark mentality, which condemns young people to death through fabricated "fast-track" trials held in torture chambers and lasting only a few minutes, will never be able to stifle the peoples' demands for freedom. History bears witness to this.
The right to life is absolute and sacred; it cannot be usurped by any political regime or ideology. Today, if the Iranian regime -one of the first regimes that come to mind globally when the term "political execution" is mentioned- believes it can discipline women, youth, artists, activists, and all segments of oppressed peoples through death sentences, it is gravely mistaken. The slogan "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi," which rose in the aftermath of the murder of Jina Amini, has become the peoples' clearest response to this obsolete regime of executions. The loss of Ramin Zelleh, Karim Maroufpour, and all those who have been hanged will not weaken this determination to resist; on the contrary, it will further amplify the legitimate anti-regime struggle and justified outrage.
As the DEM Party, we commemorate Ramin Zelleh, Karim Maroufpour, Saman Mohammadi Khiareh, and all revolutionary and pro-freedom prisoners who were executed because of their dissident identities; we extend our deepest condolences to their families and all their comrades. We condemn in the strongest possible terms these brutal executions and political massacres carried out by the Iranian regime.
We call on the entire democratic public, particularly the United Nations and international human rights organizations, to take stronger, concrete, and deterrent measures against these unlawful executions, which Iran has accelerated under the pretext of regional crises.
The death penalty is not a punishment, but a political murder committed by the state. We will resolutely continue our struggle and solidarity until executions come to an end in our geography and throughout the world, and until every identity and belief is liberated.
DEM Party Central Executive Board
9 June 2026