Iran’s judiciary has detained 3,292 people in recent months on charges of cooperating with hostile states, spokesman Asghar Jahangir announced on 22 June, while rights groups report a sharp increase in executions of political opponents since the end of active hostilities with Israel. According to data cited by The Wall Street Journal, at least 45 individuals have been executed on political charges since the start of the year, with the pace accelerating in recent weeks even as ceasefire talks began. Amnesty International warned in May that Iranian authorities were using what they call ‘war conditions’ to intensify repression through mass arbitrary arrests, flagrantly unfair accelerated trials, politically motivated executions, severe prison sentences and confiscation of assets.

Jahangir told a press conference that among those arrested, 684 face accusations of ‘operational acts’ benefiting Israel, 657 are charged with economic, financial or technological cooperation, 201 with assistance, and 1,258 with political, propaganda or media activity. He said 1,061 indictments have been issued and hundreds of assets belonging to ‘traitors’ identified, with a 34-page list of movable and immovable property submitted to him. In parallel, provincial judicial officials disclosed that more than 1,800 case files related to the December–January protests have been opened in just three provinces – Mazandaran, Zanjan and Sistan-Baluchestan – with some already resulting in verdicts and executions. The protests, triggered by a collapse of the rial to historic lows and a surge in prices, were met with an 88-day internet blockade aimed at preventing organisers from communicating or sending images abroad.

Viewed from European capitals, the Iranian crackdown is part of a broader pattern of states leveraging security crises to tighten internal controls. Britain, France and Germany have condemned violence against protesters in Iran and called for respect for assembly and expression rights. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stated on 10 June that Iran had executed around 40 people on national security charges since the start of 2026, 18 of them participants in the December protests. Meanwhile, in Italy, Interior Undersecretary Nicola Molteni of the League party linked immigration and Islamic fundamentalism as ‘two faces of the same problem’, announcing a push to halt family reunifications and tighten rules on unaccompanied foreign minors. He cited 251 expulsions of radicalised individuals and recent arrests of alleged Hamas supporters as evidence of a threat requiring preventive police and judicial tools, including a new offence of possessing material for terrorism purposes.

The Iranian judiciary’s post-war actions extend into digital space: Jahangir reported that 56 joint taskforces with state bodies had identified and filtered over 50,000 pages containing some six million pieces of ‘criminal content’ on foreign messaging platforms. The combination of physical detentions, asset confiscation and online surveillance indicates, according to rights monitors, a systematic effort to suppress dissent under the cover of national security. The dossier remains open, with thousands of cases still under judicial review and further indictments expected. In Europe, the new EU migration pact has entered into force, introducing faster returns and the possibility of repatriation to non-EU third countries, while Italy’s proposed legislative changes on family reunification and minors are set for parliamentary debate.