The four-year ordeal of Jamshid Sharmahd, a vocal opponent of the Islamic Republic of Iran and one of the victims of its relentless transnational repression, has finally ended.

In a statement released today ahead of the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Human Rights Activists (HRA) and The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (ABC) condemn the alarming surge in executions in Iran, which have reached their highest level in the last decade—at least 811 reported executions in the past year alone as reported by the organizations.

Thirty-three years ago, in August, France was gripped for days by the news of the French police's (unsuccessful) pursuit of two Iranian assassins. The men had successfully achieved their mission to kill Iranian Pro-democracy leader Chapour Bakhtiar, sentenced to death by Iran’s Supreme Leader. Bakhtiar was killed in his home in Suresne, a suburb of Paris, where he was protected by a specially trained unit of France’s security forces (CRS) day and night.