Iran has executed two more people arrested in connection with the January 2026 protests, adding to a growing number of executions that have drawn criticism from human rights groups as well as voices inside Iran. A number of individuals are questioning both the judicial process in these death penalty cases and the broader consequences of the use of capital punishment in the wake of the protest movement.
Shahram Sadeghi, arrested during the January protests in Karaj, was executed on August 16. Iran’s judiciary accused him of carrying out “operational actions” on behalf of Israel, the United States and other hostile actors. Iran Human Rights identified Sadeghi as the 27th person executed in connection with the January protests.
Four days later, authorities executed Ghaem Hosseini, a 21-year-old Afghan national arrested following the January 8 protests at Ali-Khani Square in Isfahan. Hosseini had been convicted of charges including moharebeh (“waging war against God”), efsad-e fel-arz (“corruption on earth”), acting against national security and destruction of public property.
Hosseini’s case was part of a much larger prosecution stemming from the Ali-Khani Square protests. According to the Committee for Following Up on Detainees, Hosseini and four other young defendants – Alireza Raisi, Amirhossein Maleki, Ali Dashti and Amirhossein Ebrahimi-Enalujeh – had been sentenced to death, with their sentences upheld by the Supreme Court and their cases reaching the implementation stage.
But the two executions this week are only part of a much broader picture. On August 10, the Committee for Following Up on Detainees published a report titled “Escalation in Death Sentences for January Protesters: Names of More Than 60 Prisoners Facing Possible Execution.” The Committee, which has been documenting arrests and death penalty cases since the early days of the January protests, said it compiled the information through its own investigations as well as reports from other human rights organizations and media outlets.
The Committee cautioned that the cases it has been able to identify may represent only part of the real number. Dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of other protesters could be facing execution without their identities or the status of their cases being publicly known, it warned. In several previous cases, according to the Committee, the identities of protesters sentenced to death became public only after their executions were announced by judiciary-affiliated media.
The cases documented in the report vary widely, but many raise serious questions about the proportionality of the punishment and the judicial process that produced the sentences. Three defendants – Ehsan Hosseinipour-Hesarloo, Matin Mohammadi and Erfan Amiri – were only 17 or 18 when they were arrested in connection with the burning of the Seyed al-Shohada Mosque in Pakdasht during the January 8 protests. They were tried on charges that included acting against internal security, conspiracy against national security, participation in the killing of two people, setting fire to the mosque and destruction of public property. All three were sentenced to death, and their sentences have been upheld by the Supreme Court.
In Shiraz, Benjamin Naqdi, a kickboxing and Muay Thai champion, was arrested after allegedly discharging a fire extinguisher toward security forces. According to his lawyer, Mostafa Nili, no one was injured in the incident. Nevertheless, the court treated the allegations as efsad-e fel-arz and sentenced him to death. His sentence has since been upheld by the Supreme Court.
Other cases involve acts of property damage. Kamal Khan-Babaei, 32, was sentenced to death on a moharebeh charge related to destruction of public property. According to the Committee, citing HRANA, one of the acts cited against him was breaking two surveillance cameras during the protests.
Mehnam Navab-Safavi, 22, was sentenced to death in Isfahan on charges including moharebeh, destruction of public property, propaganda against the state and conspiracy. According to the report, slogan-writing was among the acts cited in his case.
There are also allegations of torture, prolonged incommunicado detention and other serious violations of due process. Many criticisms inside Iran have also focused on the extremely fast prosecution and executions, particularly amid such due process concerns. The Committee says Saeed Zarei Kordshouli, arrested following protests in Marvdasht, was tortured so severely after his arrest that he suffered multiple fractures to his face, legs and ribs. Other defendants in the same case were also allegedly tortured to force them to accept responsibility for the deaths of five members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the protests. Four defendants in that case have been sentenced to death.
Mehran Seyedzadeh, another protester sentenced to death, was reportedly held for three months with no contact with his family or the outside world following his arrest. Three Afghan nationals – Afshar Shah-Ahmadi, Iman Shafaei and Sadreddin Ahmadzadeh – were sentenced to death over allegations that they participated in setting fire to a police station. According to the Committee, they were held for 40 days in an Intelligence Ministry detention facility without contact with their families after their arrests.
Saeed Madani, a prominent Iranian sociologist and former political prisoner who was recently released from prison, raised the issue in a recent interview, describing one case in which seven people were arrested together and four were executed less than three months later. Madani said the group was arrested around January 8 and 9 and that the case involved accusations that protesters had thrown stones from a rooftop toward security forces. He said the detainees were denied normal family visits and that even their limited telephone contacts took place while they remained in security detention. Three of the defendants, according to Madani, did not even have court-appointed lawyers while facing proceedings that resulted in death sentences.
For Madani, however, the problem goes beyond the absence of lawyers or the speed with which the sentences were handed down. He questioned what the government hopes to accomplish by threatening young protesters with execution. Many of the young people who came into the streets, he argued, see little hope for their future and believe they are struggling simply to survive. Executing them does nothing to address the conditions that brought them into the streets in the first place.
Madani also pointed to what happens after an execution — particularly to the families left behind. What judgment, he asked, will parents make about a state they believe unjustly took the lives of their children? Rather than eliminating dissent, Madani warned, such executions could leave families carrying that grievance and waiting for an opportunity to seek redress for what they regard as the unjust killing of their children.
The Committee’s documentation gives those concerns a broader context. Some of the protesters on its list have received death sentences that have already been upheld by the Supreme Court. Others remain in the appeals process, while several cases have reached the implementation stage. Some of those facing execution were teenagers when they were arrested; many others are in their early twenties.
The Committee has urged families, friends and relatives of detainees to make information about death penalty cases public before prisoners’ names emerge only through official announcements of their executions. It argues that silence in response to security pressure has not necessarily protected prisoners in previous cases, while public attention can make opaque proceedings more difficult and increase pressure for basic due-process protections.
Iranian society continues to grapple with, and push back on, the Iranian government’s prioritization of executions of individuals accused of violence amid the protests. While the system likely hopes these executions serve as a deterrent against future unrest, it is also possible that they have the opposite effect. As Madani warns, putting protesters to death risks deepening grievances, leaving families and communities dealing with injustice and a desire to rectify it.