The Fabricated Terror: How the Islamic Republic Built a Case on Innocence and Death

Summary

On the evening of April 12, 2008, an explosion tore through the Hosseynieh Seyed al-Shohada mosque in Shiraz, killing 14 worshippers and injuring more than 200 others. The blast occurred during prayers at a cultural center affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, just weeks before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was scheduled to visit the city. In the immediate aftermath, authorities denied any act of terrorism had taken place. Within weeks, that narrative reversed. Over the next sixteen years, seven individuals would be executed in connection with the bombing, their trials marred by torture, forced confessions, and systematic denial of legal representation. The most recent execution, that of 69-year-old German-Iranian dual national Jamshid Sharmahd in October 2024, triggered an international crisis and exposed the lengths to which the Islamic Republic will go to manufacture enemies and justify repression.

This investigation reveals a pattern of judicial fabrication that stretches back decades, implicating the intelligence apparatus of the Islamic Republic in a deliberate strategy of framing dissidents for crimes they did not commit. Former intelligence officials have gone on record identifying the case as perjury. Executed prisoners left behind letters describing themselves as victims of a "dirty puzzle." International human rights organizations concluded the trials were show proceedings devoid of due process. What emerges is not simply a miscarriage of justice, but a systematic architecture of state terror dressed in the language of law.

Origins of a Narrative

The initial response from Iranian authorities to the Shiraz explosion betrayed either confusion or calculation. Hours after the blast, the provincial police commander in Fars declared the incident was not an act of sabotage but rather an accident caused by leftover munitions from an Iran-Iraq War exhibition that had been held at the site. This explanation persisted for over two weeks. On April 28, 2008, the National Security Council issued an official statement asserting that investigations had ruled out any bombing or transfer of explosives by hostile elements, domestic or foreign. The death toll, initially reported as 12, would eventually be confirmed at 14, with three of the victims children aged 2, 6, and 11.

Yet by mid-May, the narrative had undergone a complete reversal. On May 18, Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi announced during a condolence visit to victims' families that authorities had arrested the bombers. He claimed the suspects had been apprehended in another province while preparing further attacks and had confessed to the Shiraz operation. The Intelligence Ministry soon elaborated, stating that the bomb used was an 8-pound British-made remote-controlled device capable of killing far more people had it not been positioned near a structural column.​

This abrupt about-face raised immediate questions. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, then head of the Expediency Council and a former president, publicly criticized the initial denials as an injustice to the 200 injured victims and their families, stating that security officials had refused to recognize those killed as martyrs because they initially denied a bombing had occurred. Rafsanjani suggested the denials were motivated by operational security concerns, a tacit acknowledgment that intelligence operations were being conducted under cover of the investigation. Reports emerged that fire department officials had been pressured to support the accidental explosion narrative in the early days, and that the founder of the Rahpouyan Vesal cultural center had been summoned to the provincial governor's office.​

The shift in official accounts coincided with an alleged secondary incident. According to state media, suspects were arrested following an explosion at a Tehran hotel where they were preparing another bomb intended for use at the Tehran International Book Fair. This explosion, authorities claimed, led to the unraveling of a broader terrorist network planning attacks on the Russian consulate in Rasht and religious sites in Qom. The Intelligence Ministry accused the suspects of being affiliated with the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, also known as Tondar, a monarchist opposition group based abroad. The ministry's statement linked the group to the United States and the United Kingdom, framing the bombing as part of a foreign-backed conspiracy.

From the outset, however, the Kingdom Assembly of Iran denied any connection to the attack. Rozita Manteqi, the group's spokesperson, stated in an interview with Voice of America that the organization had never pursued armed objectives and did not recognize any of the individuals arrested as members. She emphasized that the executed prisoners had never been affiliated with the organization. This denial was consistent with statements from family members and lawyers of the accused, who maintained that the charges were fabricated and the confessions coerced.

The Architecture of Fabrication

The case against those accused of the Shiraz bombing bore the unmistakable signatures of previous intelligence ministry operations designed to frame innocent individuals. Abdullah Shahbazi, a former director of the Political Studies Institute within the Intelligence Ministry and a historian close to the supreme leader, publicly declared the arrested individuals innocent. In a significant act of dissent, Shahbazi compared the Shiraz case to the methods of Saeed Emami, the deputy intelligence minister responsible for orchestrating the Chain Murders of the 1990s.

Saeed Emami's legacy looms over any examination of fabricated terrorism cases in the Islamic Republic. Between 1988 and 1998, Emami directly planned or supervised the assassinations of at least 66 intellectuals, writers, and political dissidents. His operations included not only extrajudicial killings but also the creation of false narratives to justify state violence. One of Emami's most notorious fabrications involved the 1994 bombing of the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, which killed 26 people. Mostafa Tajzadeh, a deputy interior minister under President Mohammad Khatami, revealed in 2019 that Emami had planned the attack and then fabricated evidence to blame the Taliban, including a falsified communication from an Afghan commander. The Intelligence Ministry used this manufactured evidence to shift blame away from internal operations and toward external enemies, thereby avoiding sectarian conflict and maintaining the regime's narrative control.

When Emami's crimes were exposed in 1999, he was arrested. Days later, authorities announced he had committed suicide in prison by ingesting hair removal cream. The suspicious death was widely viewed as an assassination designed to prevent Emami from revealing the extent of institutional complicity in the murders. His wife testified that Emami maintained close ties to Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader's eldest son, and had accompanied the Khamenei family on a trip to London in 1990. Emami himself stated under interrogation that he was "an obedient soldier of Velayat" and had only followed orders.

Shahbazi's comparison of the Shiraz case to Emami's methods was not made lightly. He published photographs of two detainees, Faramarz Sheikholeslami and Mohammad Shah Qotbi, whom the Intelligence Ministry had labeled monarchists, and asserted they were being framed just as victims had been in the Imam Reza bombing. Shahbazi's warnings went unheeded. The machinery of prosecution moved forward.​

The pattern Shahbazi identified was one of deliberate perjury in service of political and security objectives. By attributing bombings and other attacks to opposition groups, the Intelligence Ministry could justify increased repression, extract confessions that implicated broader networks, and demonstrate to the supreme leader and the public that the regime faced existential threats requiring harsh measures. The logic was circular and self-sustaining: create the threat, prosecute the innocent, use their executions to justify further crackdowns.

The Condemned

The first wave of executions took place on April 21, 2009, exactly one year and nine days after the bombing. Three men were hanged at Adelabad Prison in Shiraz: Mohsen Eslamian, a 21-year-old student at Shiraz University; Ali Asghar Pasht, a 20-year-old student at the same institution; and Roozbeh Yahyazadeh, a 32-year-old lathe worker. All three were convicted of moharebeh, or "enmity against God," a charge frequently applied to those accused of taking up arms against the state and one that carries a mandatory death sentence under Iranian law.

The trials of these men were conducted behind closed doors with no independent observers. None were granted access to lawyers of their choosing. Family members of Yahyazadeh had requested that Abdolfattah Soltani, a prominent human rights attorney, represent him, but the Supreme Court denied the request. The men were held in prolonged detention, during which they were subjected to torture and other forms of coercion designed to extract confessions. No physical evidence linking them to the bombing was presented in court. The proceedings relied entirely on their coerced statements.

Human rights organizations immediately condemned the executions. Amnesty International noted that the trials failed to meet even minimal standards of due process and that the death sentences were carried out in violation of Iranian law, which requires notification of defense counsel before executions are implemented. The families of the executed were not informed in advance and learned of the hangings through media reports.

The second wave of executions followed less than a year later. On January 28, 2010, Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani, 37, and Arash Rahmanipour, 19, were hanged in Tehran. The circumstances surrounding their prosecution revealed additional layers of manipulation. Initially, state media and judicial officials linked the two men to the post-election unrest that had engulfed Iran following the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009. Both men appeared in televised mass trials of opposition figures accused of attempting to overthrow the government.

But this connection was a lie. Rahmanipour's lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, confirmed that her client had been arrested in April 2009, three months before the presidential election. He could not have participated in post-election protests because he was already in custody. The charge against him was later changed to involvement in the Shiraz bombing, a claim Sotoudeh vigorously disputed. She revealed that Rahmanipour had been threatened with harm to his family unless he confessed, and that he had been denied adequate legal representation throughout the judicial process.

The case of Arash Rahmanipour exposes one of the most egregious violations in the entire saga: he was a minor at the time of the bombing. In April 2008, when the explosion occurred, Rahmanipour was under 18 years old. Executing individuals for crimes allegedly committed while they were children is a clear violation of international law and Iran's own obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary of the Human Rights Council of the judiciary, later acknowledged that Rahmanipour had been in detention for months before the June 2009 election and that his case was related to the April 2008 Shiraz bombing, not the post-election unrest. This admission only deepened the contradictions in the state's narrative.

Rahmanipour's father, Davoud, publicly condemned the proceedings as a mockery of justice. Sotoudeh described the execution as illegal and unjust, stating that Iran bore responsibility for "an illegal and unfair execution of a human being and child called Arash Rahmanipour". The timing of the executions, coming just weeks before the anniversary of the 1979 revolution and in the midst of ongoing protests, suggested they were intended as a message of intimidation to the opposition.

On May 9, 2010, five more prisoners were executed at Evin Prison in Tehran, including Mehdi Eslamian. Eslamian's case illustrated the boundless cruelty of the judicial process. He was the brother of Mohsen Eslamian, who had been executed the previous year. Mehdi Eslamian was not accused of direct involvement in the bombing. His alleged crime was providing financial assistance to his brother, specifically giving him 200,000 tomans, roughly equivalent to $200 at the time. Eslamian worked as a taxi driver and had no history of political activity.

During his detention, Eslamian was subjected to severe torture, including flogging and beatings. He was denied medical attention for injuries sustained in custody. Under this duress, he was forced to confess to aiding his brother. His lawyer, Khalil Bahramian, who also represented Farzad Kamangar, one of the Kurdish activists executed alongside Eslamian, reported that both men alleged extensive abuse at the hands of prison authorities.

Before his execution, Mehdi Eslamian managed to smuggle a letter out of Gohardasht Prison in Karaj. In it, he wrote with bitter clarity about his fate. He described himself as a victim of "a dirty puzzle" orchestrated by individuals with "sinister objectives" who were willing to sacrifice innocent lives to further their own agendas. He asked, "Is helping my younger brother financially an act of moharebeh? Do you even understand the definition of moharebeh?" He wrote that he had been condemned without any evidence or documentation, and that his execution would serve only to deepen the regime's enmity toward the people of Iran. This letter stands as one of the most poignant documents of judicial murder in the modern history of the Islamic Republic.​

The Kidnapping and Trial of Jamshid Sharmahd

The most internationally prominent victim of the Shiraz case was Jamshid Sharmahd, a German-Iranian dual national and U.S. resident who was abducted, tortured, and executed in circumstances that provoked a diplomatic crisis between Iran and Western governments.

Sharmahd was born in Tehran in 1955 and emigrated to Germany in the late 1970s. He worked as a software engineer and founded a company specializing in multi-language software development. He later moved to the United States, settling in California, where he became involved with the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, an exiled monarchist opposition group. Sharmahd served as the spokesperson for Radio Tondar, the group's broadcasting arm, and managed its website. The Islamic Republic accused him of being the "ringleader" of Tondar and of planning and directing multiple terrorist attacks inside Iran, including the 2008 Shiraz bombing.

Sharmahd's family and legal representatives consistently denied these allegations, stating that he was only a spokesperson and that his activities were limited to advocacy for free expression and opposition to the regime through peaceful means. Rozita Manteqi, the Kingdom Assembly spokesperson, reiterated that any operations attributed to Tondar had no connection to the organization and occurred after the disappearance of Frood Fouladvand, the group's founder, who vanished near the Iran-Turkey border in January 2007 and is presumed to have been abducted and killed by Iranian intelligence.

In July 2020, Sharmahd traveled to Dubai on a business trip. According to his family, he intended to continue to India. He never arrived. On August 1, 2020, Iran's Intelligence Ministry announced it had arrested Sharmahd in a "complicated operation". A video was broadcast showing Sharmahd blindfolded, appearing to confess to leading Tondar and organizing terrorist attacks. The manner of his capture remained murky. Family members and human rights groups concluded he had been kidnapped in Dubai and forcibly transferred to Iran.

Tracking data from Sharmahd's mobile phone, provided by his family to the Associated Press, indicated that after his disappearance from Dubai, his phone signal moved to Oman before entering Iran. The route through Oman is significant. The sultanate has long served as a backchannel for negotiations between Iran and Western powers, hosting secret talks and facilitating prisoner exchanges. The decision to route Sharmahd through Oman rather than taking him directly from the UAE to Iran raises the possibility that Iranian officials initially considered using him as leverage in a negotiation or exchange. If so, that calculus changed. No exchange took place, and Sharmahd remained in Iranian custody.​

For the next four years, Sharmahd was held largely in solitary confinement and subjected to severe physical and psychological abuse. In 2022, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an opinion concluding that Sharmahd's detention was arbitrary and violated his right to liberty. The Working Group stated that the circumstances of his arrest, involving kidnapping and illegal transfer across borders outside any legal framework, rendered his detention devoid of legal basis. The opinion further noted that Sharmahd's detention appeared to be related to his exercise of freedom of opinion and expression.

In February 2023, Sharmahd was sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court under the charge of "corruption on Earth," a capital offense used to prosecute individuals accused of acts against national security. The trial was presided over by Judge Abolqasem Salavati, head of Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. Salavati is one of the most notorious figures in Iran's judiciary, known colloquially as the "Judge of Death" for the volume and severity of the sentences he has imposed. He has been sanctioned by both the United States and the European Union for his role in show trials and systematic human rights abuses.

The trial of Sharmahd bore all the hallmarks of a show proceeding. He was denied access to independent legal counsel. The evidence against him consisted primarily of his coerced confessions, broadcast on state television. No credible documentary or forensic evidence was presented linking him to the Shiraz bombing or other attacks. Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, condemned the process as a mockery of justice.

On October 28, 2024, Iranian state media announced that Sharmahd's death sentence had been carried out. The execution triggered immediate and severe international condemnation. Germany recalled its ambassador from Tehran, closed the Iranian embassy in Berlin, and shuttered three Iranian consulates in Germany. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned of "serious consequences" and described the execution as murder by an "inhumane regime". The European Union, through its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, condemned the killing "in the strongest possible terms" and announced it was considering retaliatory measures.​

The United States, while condemning the execution, took no concrete action, a fact that drew bitter criticism from Sharmahd's daughter, Gazelle Sharmahd. In emotional interviews, she demanded accountability from both the German and American governments, arguing that both countries had a duty to protect a dual national and U.S. resident and had failed to do so.​

A week after the execution announcement, Iranian authorities introduced a new and contradictory narrative. On November 5, 2024, judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir claimed that Sharmahd had died of a stroke before his scheduled execution. This statement directly contradicted the earlier announcement that the sentence had been carried out. German officials rejected the claim and demanded the return of Sharmahd's body for independent examination.

Sharmahd's body was eventually returned to Germany in February 2025. An autopsy conducted by German medical examiners revealed that key organs, including his tongue, larynx, thyroid gland, and heart, had been removed. These are precisely the organs that would show evidence of death by hanging, such as internal trauma and asphyxiation markers. Without them, forensic experts could not determine the cause of death. Amnesty International's Germany chapter stated that the mutilation of Sharmahd's body represented a deliberate effort to obscure the truth and prevent accountability. The autopsy also found that Sharmahd's body was in extremely poor condition, with only two teeth remaining, consistent with prolonged abuse and neglect.​

The removal of organs and the contradictory statements from Iranian officials suggest a degree of official anxiety about the international fallout from Sharmahd's execution. Whether he was hanged as announced, died under torture, or succumbed to medical neglect, the regime's handling of his body indicates an awareness that the case had become a liability.

The Machinery of Repression

The prosecutions and executions connected to the Shiraz bombing cannot be understood in isolation. They are part of a broader pattern in which the Islamic Republic uses the judiciary, and particularly the Revolutionary Courts, as instruments of political terror. Judge Abolqasem Salavati, who presided over Sharmahd's trial, exemplifies this role.

Salavati has been the chief judge of Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran since at least 2004. Over two decades, he has presided over hundreds of cases involving political prisoners, journalists, human rights activists, ethnic and religious minorities, and protesters. His courtroom operates without juries, with minimal evidentiary standards, and with systematic denial of defense counsel. Defendants frequently report that Salavati acts as prosecutor, judge, and executioner all at once, announcing verdicts before trials conclude and dismissing defense arguments out of hand.

Human rights organizations have documented that Salavati's sentences are disproportionately harsh and often based on coerced confessions obtained through torture. He has sentenced political activists to death for "waging war against God" based on nothing more than their membership in opposition groups or their participation in peaceful protests. In one notorious case, he convicted and sentenced to death Mohsen Amiraslani in 2014 for heresy after the defendant described the story of Jonah and the Whale as an allegory. In another, he sentenced cartoonist Atena Farghadani to 12 years and nine months in prison for drawing members of parliament as monkeys and goats in protest of a proposed law restricting birth control.

Salavati's role in the post-2009 election crackdown was particularly brutal. He presided over the mass trials of opposition figures arrested during the Green Movement protests, imposing lengthy prison sentences and multiple death sentences in proceedings the European Union described as show trials. His courtroom became synonymous with the judicial dimension of state repression.​

The United States Treasury Department, in announcing sanctions against Salavati in 2019, stated that he had "sentenced political prisoners to death and presided over unfair trials" and had "acted as both prosecutor and judge, depriving prisoners of access to lawyers and intimidating defendants". The European Union imposed its own sanctions, citing his systematic violations of fair trial guarantees and his role in executing political opponents.​

Yet Salavati continues to serve. His longevity and the institutional protection he enjoys reflect the fact that he is not a rogue actor but rather an operative of the system. The Revolutionary Courts answer directly to the supreme leader, not to the elected government. Judges like Salavati implement policies decided at the highest levels of the security apparatus. Their function is not to administer justice but to legitimize repression through the performance of legality.

International Complicity and Indifference

The execution of Jamshid Sharmahd exposed uncomfortable truths about the international community's willingness to confront the Islamic Republic's judicial abuses. Despite Sharmahd holding German citizenship and U.S. residency, and despite years of warnings from his family and human rights groups that his life was in danger, neither government succeeded in, or perhaps prioritized, securing his release.

Germany's response after the execution was unusually strong by the standards of Western engagement with Iran. The closure of consulates and the recall of the ambassador represented the most severe diplomatic measures Germany had taken against the Islamic Republic in years. Yet these steps came only after Sharmahd was dead. Prior to the execution, German diplomatic efforts appeared limited and ineffective. Sharmahd's daughter, Gazelle, repeatedly criticized both the German and U.S. governments for failing to act decisively while her father was still alive.​

The U.S. response was even more muted. While the State Department issued a condemnation, calling the execution a violation of fundamental human rights, no punitive measures were announced. This inaction is consistent with a broader pattern in which the United States has been unwilling to expend significant diplomatic or economic capital to secure the release of dual nationals or green card holders detained in Iran, particularly when those individuals are associated, however tenuously, with opposition groups the U.S. government does not actively support.​

The route of Sharmahd's abduction through Oman raises further questions. Oman has served as an intermediary in U.S.-Iran negotiations for decades, including during the nuclear deal talks and in arranging prisoner swaps. If, as the evidence suggests, Sharmahd was taken to Oman before being moved to Iran, it is possible that Iranian officials considered proposing an exchange. If such an overture was made and rejected, or if the U.S. declined to engage, it would indicate a calculation that Sharmahd was not worth the political cost of a deal. Neither the U.S. nor German governments have provided a full accounting of what diplomatic efforts were undertaken or why they failed.

The European Union's promise to consider retaliatory measures remained vague. By February 2025, no substantial new sanctions had been imposed specifically in response to Sharmahd's execution. The language of "considering measures" suggested hesitancy rather than resolve, reflecting the EU's broader ambivalence about confronting the Islamic Republic in ways that might jeopardize economic or diplomatic interests.

The international human rights architecture also showed its limits. While UN experts issued statements condemning Sharmahd's death and calling for investigations, no binding action was taken. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention's 2022 opinion, which unequivocally found Sharmahd's detention to be illegal, had no enforcement mechanism. Iran ignored it, as it has ignored countless other UN findings. The case underscores the gap between international legal norms and the capacity of the international community to enforce them against states willing to defy consensus.

The Logic of Fabrication

Why does the Islamic Republic engage in these elaborate fabrications? The answer lies in the regime's fundamental insecurity and its reliance on fear as a tool of governance. By manufacturing terrorist threats and attributing them to foreign-backed opposition groups, the intelligence and security apparatus justifies its existence, secures resources and authority, and provides the supreme leader with evidence that the Islamic Republic is under siege.

The pattern is consistent across cases. An incident occurs, real or staged. Initial explanations are offered, often minimizing the event. Once the intelligence ministry determines how the incident can be exploited, the narrative shifts. Suspects are arrested, often individuals with tenuous or nonexistent connections to any organized opposition. Under torture, they are made to confess not only to the incident in question but to broader conspiracies, implicating foreign governments and exile groups. These confessions are broadcast on state television, creating a public narrative of existential threat. Trials are held in Revolutionary Courts where outcomes are predetermined. Executions follow, serving both as retribution and as a warning to others.

This machinery serves multiple purposes. It discredits legitimate opposition by associating it with violence and foreign manipulation. It creates a climate of fear that deters dissent. It demonstrates to the supreme leader and the security establishment that threats are being identified and neutralized. And it provides a ready explanation for any unrest or instability: not the failures of governance, not economic misery or political repression, but the machinations of external enemies and their internal agents.

The Shiraz bombing case exemplifies this logic. The initial denial of a bombing was likely intended to avoid panic and to give intelligence operatives time to shape the investigation. Once the decision was made to prosecute the case as terrorism, the apparatus moved into action. Arrests were made. Confessions extracted. Trials staged. Executions carried out over sixteen years, each one reinforcing the narrative that the Islamic Republic faces persistent threats requiring unrelenting vigilance and harsh measures.

The involvement of figures like Saeed Emami in similar operations in the past, and the public warnings from former intelligence officials like Abdullah Shahbazi, reveal that this pattern is not accidental or the product of rogue elements. It is institutional. It is policy. And it has been employed for decades.

The Human Cost

Behind the statistics and the legal arguments are individual lives destroyed and families shattered. Mehdi Eslamian, a taxi driver, hanged for giving money to his brother. Arash Rahmanipour, a teenager, executed for a crime allegedly committed when he was a child. Jamshid Sharmahd, an elderly man tortured for years and killed in custody, his body mutilated to hide the truth. Each case represents a person who was not a terrorist, who posed no threat to the state, but who became a necessary sacrifice in the regime's theater of fear.

The families of the executed have been denied even the dignity of burial. In several cases, authorities refused to release bodies or disclose burial locations, citing "security reasons". This denial of the dead extends the cruelty and serves as a final act of erasure.​

The executed left behind evidence of their innocence and their suffering. Mehdi Eslamian's letter from prison. Nasrin Sotoudeh's testimony about Arash Rahmanipour's threats and coerced confession. The UN Working Group's findings on Jamshid Sharmahd. The autopsy report showing organ removal. These fragments, preserved and made public by families, lawyers, and activists, form a counter-narrative to the regime's official story. They will not bring the dead back, but they constitute a record that cannot be wholly erased.

The Systemic Meaning

The prosecutions arising from the 2008 Shiraz bombing are not an anomaly. They are a window into how the Islamic Republic maintains power in the face of popular disaffection and international isolation. The judiciary, the intelligence services, and the Revolutionary Courts function as an integrated system of repression. Their purpose is not justice but control. Their method is not law but terror.

This system depends on impunity. Judges like Abolqasem Salavati preside over show trials for decades without consequence. Intelligence officials fabricate evidence and torture prisoners without accountability. Bodies are mutilated and buried in secret. International condemnation is dismissed. Sanctions are absorbed or circumvented. The machinery continues.

Yet the system's reliance on fabrication and fear also reveals its fragility. A state that must manufacture its enemies is a state that cannot legitimize itself through consent or accomplishment. A judiciary that tortures confessions is a judiciary that cannot persuade through evidence. A government that executes taxi drivers and teenagers is a government that knows it has lost the people.

The Shiraz bombing case, with its false narratives, its innocent victims, and its cascade of judicial murders, exemplifies the corruption at the heart of the Islamic Republic's claim to rule. Seven people are dead because the regime needed villains. Dozens more remain imprisoned on fabricated charges, awaiting the same fate. The international community's failure to intervene decisively, despite clear evidence of systematic abuse, emboldens the regime to continue.

The record is clear. The evidence is documented. The question that remains is not whether these were crimes, but whether anyone with the power to do so will hold the perpetrators accountable.