Prominent Activist Warns of Regime “Scorched Earth” Strategy

Reza Khandan, a prominent civil activist and the husband of imprisoned human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, has written a letter from Evin Prison addressing the recent mass killings of protesters in Iran.

In the letter, he describes the violence not merely as a crackdown, but as an attempt “to break the nation’s back and leave behind scorched earth.”

Khandan and Sotoudeh are among Iran’s most well-known human rights defenders. Sotoudeh, an award-winning lawyer, has spent years in prison for defending political activists and women prosecuted for removing their hijabs.

Khandan has long been a vocal advocate for her and for other political prisoners.

Their imprisonment is widely viewed as an effort to silence legal and civil resistance within the country.

In his letter, dated January 25, Khandan wrote that despite strict censorship and severe restrictions on information, reports of widespread killings in streets and villages across Iran are reaching prisoners.

He said the full scale of the violence remains unclear, but added that its intensity is so extreme that it defies description.

According to Khandan, prisoners are in a state of “deep shock and disbelief caused by the systematic and widespread murders.”

Evin Prison in Tehran is where many political prisoners, intellectuals, and journalists are held.

During periods of internet shutdowns, often referred to as “digital sieges,” authorities frequently cut prison phone lines and suspend visits.

Even so, information often filters in through newly arrested protesters, who bring firsthand accounts of the violence into the prison wards.

Khandan stressed that the killings “took place in a very short period and went far beyond the suppression of protests.”

Referring to the country’s youth, he wrote, “We are in shock over the loss of a generation that was meant to shape the future of this country—a generation with no hope for the future, humiliated, and seeking only human dignity and a normal life.”

The phrase “a normal life” has become a recurring theme in Iranian protests since the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement.

It reflects the demand of many young Iranians not for ideological change, but for basic freedoms and economic security comparable to those enjoyed by their peers elsewhere, conditions they say are denied under the Islamic Republic’s social and religious restrictions.

In his letter, Khandan also expressed sympathy for those wounded by direct gunfire to the head, face, and eyes, as well as for the families of those killed.

He called for the establishment of a special court to investigate crimes against humanity and to prosecute all those responsible.

“We, along with all citizens, human rights activists, and lawyers, must demand investigation, prosecution, and trial for everyone who played a role in this massacre and crackdown,” he wrote.

Human rights organizations have documented a pattern since the 2022 protests of Iranian security forces deliberately targeting protesters’ eyes with pellet guns and paintball weapons, causing permanent blindness.

Rights groups say the practice amounts to a policy of maiming aimed at instilling long-term fear and marking protesters.

At the conclusion of his letter, Khandan wished the people of Iran “glorious days accompanied by freedom and human dignity,” and declared his solidarity with the families who have lost loved ones and with the thousands who have suffered irreversible injuries.