By Fabio Benedetti-Valentini

Bloomberg, Aug. 27 - About 600 political prisoners are awaiting execution in a Tehran jail as Iran resorts increasingly to capital punishment, said the People's Mujahedeen, an exiled opposition group.

The Iranian government, faced with ``growing popular upheavals,'' is turning to ``mass executions as a last resort,'' Mujahedeen leader Maryam Rajavi said in an e-mailed statement.

More than 60 political prisoners have been executed since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected Iran's head of state two years ago and some 600 people are on death row in Gohardasht Prison, western Tehran, she said today.

“Thousands of workers, teachers, students and youths have been arrested and sent to detention centers where they have been subjected to indiscriminate torture,'' Rajavi said. Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has executed a total of 120,000 political prisoners, she said.

The movement has its headquarters at Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris.