Between March 18 and the end of August 2026, Iranian authorities unlawfully executed at least 59 men on politically motivated and vague national security charges following grossly unfair trials, according to a joint report released by Human Rights Watch and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran. The campaign includes at least 29 protesters arrested during the December 2025-January 2026 demonstrations and at least three individuals connected to the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement.
Several of those sent to the gallows were teenagers aged 18 or 19, alongside numerous individuals in their early 20s. Five of the executions were carried out in public, which rights groups noted violates the absolute prohibition against torture and ill-treatment.
## Rushed Proceedings and Capital Charges for Non-Lethal Acts
The vast majority of the protesters were executed within six months of their arrest, leaving defendants without adequate time to prepare a legal defense. Summary proceedings ranged from just over five weeks to under eight months from the initial arrest to execution.
Saleh Mohammadi, a 19-year-old wrestling champion, was arbitrarily executed roughly five weeks after his arrest. Amir Hossein Hatami, 18, faced execution 84 days after being detained. Sasan Azadvar Jonaqani, a 21-year-old karate champion, was arrested, convicted, and executed in under four months for acts that included allegedly breaking the windows of a police bus with stones and a baton.
According to Human Rights Watch and the Boroumand Center, capital charges in 16 of the 29 protest-related cases involved no allegations of killing whatsoever. International human rights law restricts the application of the death penalty to the “most serious crimes,” defined strictly as intentional killing under the strictest limitations and safeguards. Instead, young protesters faced capital punishment for setting fire to buildings and vehicles, possessing or using Molotov cocktails, and entering or destroying public and government buildings.
In at least 10 of the remaining 13 cases, the state alleged involvement in fatal incidents but bypassed murder charges, choosing instead to convict defendants under vaguely worded offenses such as “waging war against God” and “corruption on earth.” These broad statutes permitted courts to issue death sentences for nonfatal assaults, incitement to violence, or weapons possession without proving individual responsibility for any death.
## Expansion Under the 2025 Espionage Law
At least eight protesters were convicted and sentenced to death under the 2025 Espionage Law, formally titled “Intensifying Punishments for Spies and Collaborators with the Zionist Regime and Hostile States.” The legislation, originally introduced following nationwide protests in late 2019 and early 2020, was fast-tracked.
Roya Boroumand, executive director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, stated that the 2025 law has become a fast-tracked mechanism for sentencing protesters to death without evidence of espionage or foreign collaboration, while sending a chilling warning against exposing how those convictions are obtained. The statute broadened punishable conduct and accelerated procedural deadlines.
## Coerced Confessions and Systematic Denial of Counsel
Human rights investigators documented widespread patterns of torture and ill-treatment, including beatings, mock executions, and threats of rape.
State media repeatedly broadcast coerced video confessions of individuals later executed.
Defendants were systematically denied access to independent lawyers of their choosing.
## International Response and Universal Jurisdiction
The escalation in political executions follows a broader surge that saw the Boroumand Center record at least 2,113 executions in 2025, marking the highest annual total since the late 1980s.
Human Rights Watch and the Boroumand Center have urged United Nations member states to press Iranian authorities for an immediate halt to all executions and the establishment of a moratorium leading to total abolition. Given entrenched domestic impunity, the organizations called on judicial authorities in other countries to launch investigations under the principle of universal jurisdiction, aiming to hold Iranian officials accountable for torture, enforced disappearances, and other international crimes.
