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Hossein Abedini-Deputy Director of the NCRI's UK Representative Office- photo by Douglas Ross
The Istanbul morning clung like a shroud, heavy with the brine of the Bosphorus and the murmur of a city that never truly sleeps. In the passenger seat of a nondescript sedan slicing through the affluent Sariyar district streets, Hossein Abedini clutched his briefcase—a battered repository of resistance manifestos and encrypted dispatches—his pulse syncing with the wipers' frantic swipe. At 67 now, but forged in the fires of 35 years past, Abedini was no stranger to the regime's long shadow. Beside him, at the wheel, sat a trusted driver; behind, shadows of a fellow NCRI female member, bound for the airport and the thin air of exile's reprieve. The mission that night wasn't a daring extraction of dissidents on the brink of extradition—it was simpler, graver: survival itself. But Tehran had other plans. It struck like thunder from the dark—a savage rear-end collision that hurled the car forward, followed by a T-bone blocking escape by another assassin vehicle, its bulk crumpling metal and scattering glass like brittle stars. Time splintered into shards of chaos. Automatic weapons chattered, muzzle flashes stitching the gloom with lethal threads, the air acrid with cordite and terror.
This wasn't random road rage; it was a hit squad's symphony, aimed at Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the NCRI's Foreign Relations Committee, whose presence in the convoy marked him as prey. Abedini, a steadfast member of that same committee, was collateral in the crosshairs—yet fate twisted him into the fray's fulcrum. Instinct overrode paralysis. Abedini flung open the buckled door, surging from the wreckage like a fury unleashed, briefcase forgotten in the footwell amid the melee. He charged at the nearest gunman, a specter in black fatigues, closing the gap in a blur of defiance. The assailant's automatic spat nine rounds point-blank, bullets carving fire through Abedini's torso—a near miss searing toward his heart, another eviscerating his liver in a wound that should have been his elegy. The second attacker's weapon jammed in the frenzy, a mechanical mercy amid the bedlam, as Abedini's team reacted and sirens wailed into the void.
He crumpled, the world dissolving to a crimson haze, rain mingling with the spill of his life on the pavement. Quick hands—comrades' and medics'—hauled him to Istanbul's premier trauma center in minutes, a desperate relay against the reaper. Forty days in coma, three months adrift in unconscious twilight: that's the toll exacted before Abedini clawed back to the light, his body a map of 14 major surgeries and 154 pints of transfused blood. Eighty percent of his liver, that vital forge, lay lost to the blade—yet he endured, a testament to Turkish precision and human grit. Even in that vulnerable limbo, death's envoys circled: Iranian agents, cloaked as Turkish police officers and innocuous visitors, probing for a finality the guards' vigilance denied. Iranian state whispers dismissed it as a "freak accident," but Abedini knew the lie's vintage—plausible deniability, bottled since the ayatollahs' 1979 ascension. No pulp-fiction flourish, this raw chronicle belongs to Hossein Abedini, an elder statesman of Iran's opposition abroad and a pillar of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), anchored by the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).
In a 45-minute video interview conducted from a secure location, Hossein Abedini provided a detailed account of the 1990 assassination attempt, analyzing the event with the clarity of an intelligence briefing. He identified the operation as having been directed by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), specifically organized by Ahmad Aghighi, a MOIS operative who entered Turkey under diplomatic cover.
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Abedini characterized the attack as one of more than 500 extraterritorial operations Iran has conducted against dissidents since the 1979 revolution. He explained that the regime's objective extends beyond physical elimination to a strategy of psychological warfare, aimed at extinguishing any sense of safety for exiles.
He noted a tactical shift in recent years, with MOIS increasingly relying on criminal networks and proxy groups to carry out attacks, a method that provides greater deniability and is more cost-effective. Abedini suggested this evolution reflects the regime's growing vulnerability due to economic sanctions, internal unrest, and international pressure.
His proposed solution includes the formal designation of MOIS as a terrorist organization by the international community, the implementation of stricter sanctions targeting the financial assets of regime elites, and the closure of Iranian diplomatic missions that serve as bases for intelligence operations.
Looking to the future, Abedini pointed to the NCRI's prepared constitutional framework for a secular, democratic Iran as an alternative to the current theocracy. He observed that despite a brutal crackdown inside Iran, including a sharp increase in executions, popular dissent continues to grow, signaling the regime's deepening instability.
Abedini provided the following information from the Iran Human Rights Monitor. Based on the statistical data from the October 2025 Iran Human Rights Monthly Report, the human rights situation in Iran has reached a critical nadir, marked by an unprecedented surge in state-sanctioned executions and systematic repression.
Image of Iranian Regime execution statistics courtesy of the Iran Human Rights Monitor
**Execution Statistics and Patterns**
October 2025 witnessed the highest monthly execution toll in decades, with at least 279 individuals put to death. This figure represents approximately one execution every 2-3 hours throughout the month. Among those executed were 8 women and one juvenile offender who was under 18 at the time of the alleged crime. The executions occurred in clusters across multiple prisons, including Qezel Hesar, Shiraz, Isfahan, Mashhad, Kerman, Qom, Rasht, and Zanjan, with single-day totals repeatedly reaching double digits.
**Political Executions and Judicial Process Violations**
The month saw the execution of seven political prisoners on October 4th alone. Six Ahvazi Arab political prisoners were executed in Sepidar Prison (Ahvaz), while another was executed in Qezel Hesar Prison in Karaj. These men had endured years of interrogation and torture before receiving death sentences from revolutionary courts. The Supreme Court demonstrated systematic disregard for due process, upholding death sentences in cases with serious procedural flaws, including that of Ehsan Faridi, a 22-year-old student, whose retrial request was reportedly rejected in less than an hour despite evident legal deficiencies.
**Prisoner Resistance and International Response**
In extraordinary acts of defiance, approximately 1,500 death-row prisoners in Qezel Hesar Prison's Unit 2 conducted a week-long hunger strike, with some participants sewing their lips shut and holding "No to Execution" placards. The protest forced authorities to temporarily halt pending executions and return six prisoners from solitary confinement. Simultaneously, the "No to Execution Tuesdays" campaign expanded to 54 prisons across Iran, now in its 92nd consecutive week, while families of victims organized protests outside government buildings.
**Systemic Medical Neglect and fatalities**
The report documents systematic denial of medical care, amounting to what appears to be a policy of "slow-killing" political prisoners. Mohammad Ali Akbari Monfared, 58, remains paralyzed in both legs and chained to a hospital bed despite doctors deeming continued imprisonment life-threatening. Hoda Mehreganfar, a 35-year-old robotics engineer, has been denied urgent hospital transfer for an endometrioma cyst. Two prisoners reportedly died due to a lack of timely medical treatment in Qezel Hesar and Shiraz prisons.
This escalation in executions and repression occurs alongside what the report describes as deliberate state negligence in providing adequate medical care to detained dissidents, creating conditions that suggest a comprehensive strategy to eliminate political opposition through both direct and indirect means. The international community continues to monitor what may constitute crimes against humanity under systematic state policy.
Related to this data and interview is the Nov 15th Conference in Washington, DC, named the Free Iran Conference 2025, bringing together over 1000 scholars. The speakers' list includes many dignitaries, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Congressman Patrick Kennedy. Topics will all be related to freeing the Iranian people in order to create a free, democratic, and Constitutional Iran.
