A BRAVE Iranian prisoner has called for the war-ravaged regime to be overthrown in a defiant video message from the notorious Evin prison taken before he was hanged.
Mohammad Taghavi, 58, called for supporters to bring “the campaign for overthrow [of the regime] to fruition,” shortly before his execution.
He added: “You, dear friends, stand at the threshold of history – the door of this land’s history opening toward a bright and luminous future.”
The brave critic was executed alongside Akbar “Shahrokh” Daneshvarkar, 60, a fellow member of the banned opposition party, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) on Monday morning.
The two political prisoners were arrested in Iran in 2024 accused of taking part “in riots, urban actions, and confrontation with security forces”.
Following their arrests, they suffered months of extreme physical and psychological torture in Evin Prison’s notorious Ward 209 – including beatings, floggings, death threats at gunpoint and prolonged solitary confinement.
They were sentenced to death in hearings that lasted just a few minutes each.
According to Amnesty International, Iranian officials executed the men without providing them or their families advance notice so they could not say their final goodbyes.
In his video message, Taghavi said: “I am Mohammad-Ali Taghavi, 58 years old, a graduate in Graphics from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran.
“Although about a year has passed since my death sentence was issued, with the passage of time—despite living under the shadow of the gallows—we stand firmer than ever.
“This strength comes from faith in the liberation of the oppressed people, the support of the massive movement advancing under the leadership of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran..
“The truth is that the role of you — as conscious, educated, and professional individuals — in bringing the campaign for overthrow [of the regime] to fruition is unique and irreplaceable.”
In another picture, he holds up a sign which reads: “If the price of staying alive is to renounce the name of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran then shame on such a life! Let it be yours!”
In a handwritten note smuggled out of prison last year, Daneshvarkar paid tribute to two fellow MEK prisoners Behrouz Ehsani and Mehdi Hassani, who were executed in July.
In the poignant note, he wrote: “You have gone, and your path lies before me. My dear ones, though you are not here, I have stepped forward to fill your place.
“My honourable friends, Behrouz and Mehdi, you know well and can rest assured that until my last breath, I remain steadfast in my ‘position’.
“I am ready to sacrifice my life for the homeland and the people, a firm and resolute traveller on the path of truth and reality, without straying in the slightest.”
He added: “It is an eternal honour to have been your cellmate, your companion, and your comrade-in-arms. Our separation will not last long; soon I will join you, and then no force shall have the power to part us.”
It emerged that two other members of the PMOI, Babak Alipour, a 34-year-old lawyer, and Pouya Ghobadi, a 33-year-old electrical engineer, who were sentenced to death in the same case, were executed early on Tuesday morning.
Two other men also charged in the same case – Abolhassan Montazer and Vahid Bani Amerian – are now at imminent risk of execution.
Iran has one of the worst human rights records in the world – responsible for three-quarters of the world’s executions.
Figures from last year showed the regime was carrying out death sentences against its own people every two hours.
Insiders say the paranoid regime is ramping up executions in a bid to demonstrate its power to curtail any internal uprisings as they fight the US and Israel.
It comes as the US and Israel launched “Operation Epic Fury,” a widespread military campaign targeting Iranian nuclear, military, and leadership sites, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Now more than 3,000 US troops have been scrambled to the Middle East after US President Donald Trump suggested he could send his military into Iran if negotiations fail.
Around 10,000 US troops are being deployed, including elite Marines and paratroopers from the 83nd Airborne – forces trained to seize and hold territory.
The US President has set an April 6 deadline for Tehran to agree on a deal or face devastating strikes on its energy sector.
Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said the “brutal execution of these proud PMOI members demonstrates the fear and desperation of the mullahs’ regime in the face of the angry masses”.
She added that the “criminal executions, amid a foreign war, are a clear confession by the ruling mullahs that the main enemy of the regime is the Iranian people and the resistance”.
Rajavi paid tribute to the four men saying: “Babak, Pouya, Mohammad, and Akbar are the proud teachers of truth and sacrifice in our time, and their names will remain in the history of Iran forever.
“They were chivalrous men who did not bow to any torture or pressure and stood firm on their pledge and covenant until the very end.”
She called on the United Nations and its member states to condemn the executions and take action to save the large number of political prisoners currently on death row in Iran.
She added: “The inaction of the international community only encourages this bloodthirsty regime to continue its crimes and executions.”
Hossein Abedini, deputy director of the NCRI’s office in the UK, told The Sun that the war with the US and Israel was seen as a “blessing” for the corrupt regime, as it stops the Iranian people from taking to the streets and rising up.
He said: “The fundamentalist clerical regime has always moved on two legs since its inception: domestic suppression, specifically the suppression of the principal opposition movement the PMOI/MEK, of whom over 100,000 members and supporters have been executed over the past 4.5 decades, and the export of terrorism and warmongering to mask its deep internal crises.
“For a regime that places no value on the lives or welfare of its people and spends Iran’s national wealth on nuclear programs, missiles, and regional proxies, war is a ‘blessing’; in the current chaotic atmosphere, it serves as a pretext to prevent people from taking to the streets and to cover up widespread dissatisfaction.”
He added that the executions, along with the heavy presence of security forces at checkpoints across Iranian cities, show “the regime views its main enemy as the organised resistance and the people waiting for the opportunity to rise.”
Abedini continued: “As the Iranian Resistance has repeatedly stated, the only solution to the Iranian issue is the overthrow of the regime by the people and their organised resistance.
“Neither the failed policy of appeasement, which allowed the regime to reach the nuclear threshold, nor foreign wars and bombings will lead to the downfall of this system.
“It is time for the international community to stand with the Iranian people and support the NCRI’s provisional government based on Mrs Rajavi’s 10-Point Plan.
“The provisional government will hold a free election within a maximum of six months of the regime’s downfall, so that a constituent assembly is elected that will draft the constitution of the new republic and transfer sovereignty to the people.
“Mrs Rajavi’s plan provides the infrastructure for a free, peaceful, and non-nuclear Iran based on the separation of religion and state, gender equality, and the guarantee of rights for all nationalities.
“This remains the only real solution to end hostilities and guarantee democracy and peace in Iran and the war-torn Middle East.”
