Six years after Iranian-German dissident Jamshid Sharmahd vanished during a trip to the United Arab Emirates, many questions surrounding his abduction, imprisonment and death in the custody of the Islamic Republic remain unresolved.
Marking the anniversary of his disappearance, Iran International has released the investigative documentary I'm Fine, I'll Call You!, directed by Ardavan Roozbeh.
Drawing on official documents, digital evidence and interviews with Sharmahd's family, legal team, international officials and political figures, the film reconstructs one of the Islamic Republic's most controversial intelligence operations—from his disappearance in the UAE to his death in Iranian custody.
In August 2020, Sharmahd, an Iranian-German citizen and US resident, disappeared while traveling through the United Arab Emirates.
Days later, Iran's Ministry of Intelligence announced it had captured him in what it described as a "complex operation" and transferred him to Iran—an act his family, legal team and human rights organizations have described as an extraterritorial abduction and a violation of international law.
As spokesperson for the Kingdom Assembly of Iran (Anjoman-e Padeshahi Iran), Sharmahd was accused by the Islamic Republic of involvement in the 2008 bombing of the Seyyed al-Shohada Hosseiniyeh in Shiraz.
He and his family consistently denied the allegations.
During his detention, Iranian state television aired what it said were confessions by Sharmahd, while rights groups repeatedly warned they may have been obtained under torture or coercion.
His case quickly became one of the clearest examples of what human rights organizations describe as the Islamic Republic's campaign of transnational repression.
Germany and the United States repeatedly called for his release, while the European Parliament condemned Iran's treatment of Sharmahd in several resolutions.
Diplomatic pressure, however, failed to prevent either his death sentence or his death in custody.
In October 2024, Iranian authorities announced Sharmahd's death. Conflicting official accounts, the lack of independent access to his case and unanswered questions surrounding his final months in prison have fueled continuing demands from his family and legal representatives for an independent investigation and accountability.
More broadly, the Sharmahd case has become emblematic of the Islamic Republic's use of cross-border intelligence operations, the targeting of political opponents abroad and the use of national security prosecutions as instruments of state policy.
By reconstructing the events leading from Sharmahd's disappearance to his death, I'm Fine, I'll Call You! examines how one of Iran's most consequential transnational operations unfolded, and why key questions surrounding the case remain unresolved.
Türk said executions and death sentences had risen since March, with more than 100 other people facing similar charges and the death penalty.
He urged Iranian authorities to halt all executions and move towards abolishing the death penalty.
The figures come after a series of executions in recent weeks of young people detained over the January protests, some of which drew gatherings by relatives and members of the public seeking to stop the sentences from being carried out.
Protesters executed
Iranian authorities executed 20-year-old Arvin Kheirkhah at Shahroud prison on Saturday after he was sentenced to death over his involvement in the January protests, according to information obtained by Iran International.
Kheirkhah had been convicted by a Revolutionary Court on charges including moharebeh, or "waging war against God."
His family gathered outside Shahroud prison on Friday night in an effort to stop the execution, according to Iran International. In a final conversation with his family, Kheirkhah urged them not to let him be forgotten.
His execution came days after authorities hanged Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi in Isfahan's Alikhani Square.
The two were among 12 young men sentenced to death in a case stemming from the January protests in the square. Iranian authorities accused the defendants of involvement in the deaths of four security personnel as well as arson and vandalism.
People gathered around the square overnight before the executions amid a heavy deployment of security forces.
Two other defendants in the same case, Golmohammad Mohammadi and Erfan Esfandiari, were executed on July 19, bringing the number put to death in the case to four.
Others remain under death sentences
A group of UN human rights experts, led by Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, urged Tehran in late July to halt the executions of defendants in the Isfahan case.
"Sentencing 12 people to death in one hearing, in a closed courtroom and without clarity as to each defendant's individual responsibility violates established fair trial standards," the UN experts said in a statement.
They said the defendants, aged from their late teens to early twenties, had reportedly faced arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and, in some cases, ill-treatment.
The UN experts also raised concerns that convictions relied heavily on confessions broadcast on Iranian state television, while Revolutionary Court hearings were held behind closed doors and the judgments were not made public.
As executions have accelerated in recent weeks, some Iranian social media users have increasingly portrayed the pre-dawn adhan as a reminder of hangings rather than the beginning of the day’s religious observances.
The adhan is the Islamic call summoning Muslims to the five daily prayers.
Iranian regulations state that death sentences should ordinarily be carried out at sunrise unless the court specifies another time. Executions are nevertheless widely associated with the early-morning hours, when prisoners’ families and supporters often wait for news as the dawn call to prayer is broadcast.
Social media anger turns toward religious symbols
Posts criticizing Islam and religious symbols circulated across Instagram and X following the latest executions.
An Instagram user wrote that the dawn adhan had become “a symbol and reminder of the execution of this country’s youth,” adding that a call intended to invite people to worship, peace and salvation had instead become associated with taking lives.
Activist Masih Alinejad wrote after clashes outside an execution site that the dawn call to prayer had become “only a symbol of death and execution.”
Another Instagram user wrote before planned executions in Isfahan that the young prisoners were due to be hanged “to the sound of the dawn call to prayer,” adding that it now carried “only the smell of death.”
Other users went further, posting profanity directed at Islam, the Quran, Shi’ite religious figures, the adhan and the Arbaeen pilgrimage. Some wrote that they no longer associated the dawn call with prayer but with executions.
IRGC-linked campaign urges crackdown
The IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency said more than 700 people had signed a campaign on its platform by Tuesday, calling for the “maximum punishment” of those accused of “insulting Islamic sanctities online.”
Organizers cited Article 513 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code and urged judicial and security authorities to take what they described as “effective and deterrent” action.
Under Article 513, insulting Islamic sanctities is punishable by between one and five years in prison. Cases classified as sabb al-nabi, or insulting the Prophet, can carry the death penalty.
Fars said campaign supporters called for tougher enforcement against people who “deliberately insult Islamic sanctities” online and urged authorities to prosecute offenders under existing legislation.
Judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir has previously said Iran continuously monitors cyberspace through a dedicated unit within the prosecutor general’s office and urged citizens to report alleged online offenses through official channels.
The campaign adds to broader efforts by Iranian authorities to tighten oversight of online speech as criticism over the recent executions continues to spread across social media.
Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat, the judiciary's news outlet said, were executed on Monday, after Iran's Supreme Court upheld their death sentences.
According to Mizan, the two men transmitted “coordinates, images and information about Iranian military and security sites to officers from Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and affiliated communication channels” during the 12-day and 40-day wars in 2025 and 2026.
The pair, the report said, were identified and arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' intelligence organization but did not specify when, where or how they were detained.
The judiciary outlet also said Behzad maintained direct contact with the administrator of a Telegram channel linked to Israel and supported the US and Israeli military campaign against the Islamic Republic.
Mizan cited Behzad's confessions as evidence, although rights groups have for years documented that Iranian authorities have extracted confessions under coercion, torture or harsh detention conditions.
Iranian authorities use broadly worded charges such as espionage, acting against national security, armed rebellion, enmity against God and corruption on earth to crush dissent and remove political opponents.
Human rights organizations say these labels are routinely applied to protesters, dissidents and political prisoners to portray them as security threats and provide a legal pretext for execution.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and UN experts have documented repeated cases in which such convictions were issued by revolutionary courts after grossly unfair or highly expedited proceedings, with defendants denied meaningful access to lawyers and verdicts based on torture-tainted forced confessions.
Charges against Safvat
Safvat, Mizan said, photographed Iranian air defense systems from rooftops during the 12-day war and sent the images through communication channels linked to Israel.
The outlet said some of the locations he photographed were later bombed. Without providing evidence, it also alleged Safvat had direct contact with Mossad in some instances and sent messages to Iran International.
The court, according to Mizan, sentenced both men to death based on what it described as “explicit confessions, technical evidence, recovered messages and other evidence.” The sentences were upheld by the Supreme Court before being carried out on Monday.
Wider crackdown
Iran has intensified arrests, prosecutions and executions in recent months, with authorities sentencing or executing dozens of people on charges including espionage, involvement in protests and membership of the exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).
Human rights groups and activists say the authorities have expanded the crackdown following recent military confrontations, arguing that the campaign is intended to deter renewed public unrest over Iran's deepening economic and political crises.
Iran's latest wave of public hangings of protesters amounts to "killings" and "murders" that form part of a continuing crime against humanity, former United Nations prosecutor Professor Payam Akhavan told Iran International's Eye for Iran.
“What we actually have in Iran are arbitrary executions. These are killings. They are murders,” Akhavan said. "Specifically, the case can be made that this is a crime of extermination, given the large scale of the killings."
