By Telegraph:

Iran has executed a record number of prisoners while global attention has been focused on the prospect it may go to war with Israel.

Human rights observers say the Islamic Republic is using international tensions as cover while it cracks down on dissent at home.

On Wednesday, the regime carried out its largest mass execution in more than two decades, putting 29 prisoners to death in a single day.

One day earlier, Reza Resaei, a young Kurdish-Iranian protester arrested during demonstrations in 2022, was hanged in the western city of Kermanshah.

The 34-year-old was the tenth protester to be executed over the uprising sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22 year-old detained by morality police for supposedly not wearing a hijab in September 2022.

Resaei was alleged to have killed an officer during the subsequent protests. His family, who maintain his innocence, were denied a final visit before his execution, which was carried out in secret.

“[Resaei] was the most voiceless of those executed. The EU and other countries did not protest his execution a lot because the attention is elsewhere,” said Mansoura Shojaee, an Iranian women’s rights researcher and activist in the Netherlands.

“While global and domestic media attention have been focused on regional tensions with Israel, the Iranian authorities have carried out the abhorrent arbitrary execution in secret of a young man,” said Diana Eltahawy of Amnesty International.

According to Amnesty, Rasaei was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual violence, then sentenced to death in a sham trial.

‘Shocking’
Ms Shojaee said the surge in the number of executions in recent days has “shocked” Iranian human rights activists.

“For the first time in the recent social movements in Iran, we have four imprisoned women activists who are sentenced to death,” she said.

She said the regime had “diverted the people’s attention to war and a foreign enemy to carry out more executions – just like they did in the 1980s”.