Secret execution of nine prisoners accused of ISIS membership at Ghezel Hesar Prison amid Trump’s middle east visit
Hengaw – Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Nine prisoners, including a Baloch woman named Hafiza Balochzehi and eight men, were secretly executed at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj on charges of membership in ISIS. The executions took place simultaneously with the U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East and the lifting of sanctions on the Syrian government. All nine individuals executed were of Kurdish and Baloch nationalities.
According to reports received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights , the executions were carried out at dawn on Thursday, May 15, 2025. Balochzehi, a 25-year-old woman from Saravan in Sistan and Baluchestan, along with eight male prisoners whose identities remain undisclosed, were executed in Ghezel Hesar Prison. The news was reported 35 days later, on Tuesday, June 10, 2025, by the Mizan News Agency — coinciding with the seventy-second week of the “Tuesdays Against Execution” campaign — without revealing the identities of the executed prisoners.
Informed sources confirmed that all eight men executed were Kurdish and Baloch. They had been transferred to Ghezel Hesar Prison from other facilities on May 4, 2025, ahead of their executions.
Notably, all nine prisoners were denied their final right to meet with their families before the executions were carried out.
The timing of these executions coincided with Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East, during which he signed major trade agreements and lifted sanctions on Damascus at the request of Saudi Arabia.
The prisoners had been sentenced to death on charges of “waging war through armed uprising and possession of military weapons.” Their sentences were upheld by the Supreme Court.
Government-affiliated media outlets, including the judiciary-linked Mizan News Agency, claimed that these individuals were arrested in February 2018 in western Iran (Kurdistan). Authorities reported that they had discovered and confiscated ammunition and military-grade weapons “intended for terrorist activities.”
It is worth noting that in February 2018, Mohammad Khakpour, commander of the Ground Forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported a clash between the Najaf Ashraf Base forces and a Salafi group in the “Bemo” area of Salas-e Babajani County, Kermanshah Province (Kermashan). The confrontation resulted in the deaths of three IRGC personnel and five members of the opposing group. At that time, the arrest of 16 individuals, including several foreign nationals, was announced.
