May Sato's report: The war led to increased repression in Iran.
On Wednesday, October 28, Mai Sato, the UN's human rights correspondent in Iran, described and explained her new report on the human rights situation in Iran. The report, published in September, examines the period from February to August 2026 and includes an extensive description of executions and unfair trials stressing families, internet outages, economic damage and environmental destruction.
Mai Sato, in submitting her report to the UN General Assembly, said: "Security against foreign attacks and protection of people against human rights violations within the country are not two alternative options."
According to him, the people of Iran currently have neither of these two, and thousands of families are grieving and injured both due to military attacks and due to the use of lethal force by government forces and execution of death sentences. According to Sato's report, at least 34 people were executed in connection with the December 2025 and January 2026 intercepts. He spoke of the extreme deterioration in the judicial process and added: "Sometimes court sessions were held online and within just a few minutes forced confessions were broadcast on television within days of the arrest, and dozens of defendants were tried simultaneously in cases related to the death penalty."
According to the Human Rights Watch report published on September 10, Iranian authorities executed at least 59 men on political and security charges from March 18 to the end of August 2026. At least 29 of them were arrested in connection with the interceptions of December 2025 and January 2026.
This organization says that some of those executed were 18 or 19 years old, and in some cases the process from arrest to execution of the sentence took only a few weeks. Confessions attributed to the accused were also accompanied by allegations of torture and coercion.