Mike Baker

It's Wednesday, the 24th of June.

Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin.

I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage.

All right, let's get briefed.

First up, while the world focuses on Iran's negotiations with the U.S., the regime is fighting a different battle at home.

We'll explain why Tehran is accelerating political executions and what it reveals about the leadership's fears for the future.

Later in the show, the Pentagon says the Golden Dome Missile Defense System just achieved a major milestone, successfully detecting and destroying multiple simulated threats during its first live test.

We'll have the details.

But first, today's PDB Afternoon Spotlight.

As Washington and Tehran continue their negotiations over sanctions relief and Iran's nuclear program, a very different story is unfolding inside the Islamic Republic.

While Iranian officials sit in Switzerland pushing for economic relief, the IRGC is tightening the regime's grip at home through a renewed campaign of arrests, intimidation, and executions.

According to reporting from the Wall Street Journal and several human rights organizations, Iran has executed at least 45 people on political charges so far this year.

Most of those executions have taken place in just the past three months, as the regime works to reassert its authority following months of unrest, war, and economic turmoil.

Human rights groups say the charges used against many of the condemned are often broad and very loosely defined.

Some were accused of espionage.

Others were convicted of spreading anti-government propaganda.

Still others faced charges with names that sound, I don't know, medieval to Westerners, including enmity against God and corruption on Earth.

Hmm.

The regime argues that these individuals threatened national security.

Critics counter that the charges are increasingly being used as tools to silence political opposition and frighten a population that remains deeply dissatisfied with the country's leadership.