Iran executes two men, including alleged Mossad spy, as death‑penalty surge continues

Two men were hanged in Iran on Wednesday. Mohammad Abbassi, 55, was convicted of killing a police officer during anti‑government protests in January and was labelled an "agitator" by the judiciary. The second, Ehsan Afreshteh, was sentenced to death for allegedly acting as a Mossad spy, gathering and transmitting sensitive information.

The executions come amid a sharp increase in Iran's use of the death penalty since the war‑like tensions sparked by the joint U.S.‑Israel strike on February 28. Human‑rights groups note that Iran has carried out at least a dozen espionage‑related executions and over a thousand capital sentences in recent years, making it the world’s second‑most frequent user of capital punishment after China. A new legal framework adopted in October lowered the threshold for death‑penalty offences, especially for alleged spying.

Rights organisations say the executions serve both as punishment and as a political message intended to deter dissent and portray a hard line against perceived foreign threats.