Iran executes two men over alleged role in January protests

Wednesday 30 September 2026 - 22:30

Iranian authorities executed Ali Hemmati and Majid Nik-Andish on Wednesday, September 30, in a case linked to the nationwide protests that erupted at the end of 2025 and intensified in January 2026. The executions, announced by the judiciary’s Mizan news agency, come amid renewed international scrutiny of Iran’s use of the death penalty.

Executions follow Supreme Court review

According to Mizan, the two men were convicted over their alleged participation in unrest in Mashhad, in northeastern Iran. The judiciary said the events were linked to the deaths of four members of the security forces and accused the defendants of contributing to extensive damage to public property, including shops, banks and buses.

The sentences were carried out by hanging early Wednesday after the Supreme Court upheld the death penalties, according to the judicial authorities. Independent rights groups have provided additional accounts of the case, while stressing allegations concerning the treatment of detainees and the circumstances surrounding their convictions.

The executions add to a broader series of capital cases involving people arrested during or after the January demonstrations. In August, reports indicated that several other detainees from the Mashhad area were facing death sentences or the possibility of capital punishment in connection with the unrest.

Protests that grew beyond economic grievances

The demonstrations began in late December 2025 amid widespread economic difficulties and rising living costs. They subsequently developed into a much broader challenge to the Iranian authorities, with major confrontations reported in January.

Iranian authorities have attributed the violence to what they described as terrorist actions backed by the United States and Israel. Other organizations, including foreign-based rights groups, have reported substantially different accounts of the violence and the number of people killed. Reuters reported in January that more than 3,000 deaths had been reported in connection with the unrest, while noting significant uncertainty surrounding the final toll.

Iran Human Rights has subsequently published a report documenting more than 4,200 people it says were killed during the January protests, illustrating the continuing dispute over the scale and circumstances of the violence.

The political crisis later unfolded alongside a major regional military confrontation. Since then, arrests and executions have involved both cases connected to the protests and proceedings related to the subsequent conflict.

UN expert calls for a moratorium

The latest executions came shortly after Mai Sato, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, called for an immediate moratorium on executions until the death penalty is abolished.

Sato said on September 28 that the suspension of executions had become increasingly urgent. From September 29 through October 10, the World Day Against the Death Penalty, she announced plans to highlight individual capital cases that had been raised with Iranian authorities. The cases include protesters as well as people convicted of drug-related offences and those sentenced under Iran’s qisas system.

The UN expert has also raised concerns about proceedings that, in her assessment, fall short of international fair-trial standards. Her intervention comes as international organizations continue to examine the use of capital punishment in Iran and the treatment of people arrested during periods of political unrest.

Iran's high execution rate under scrutiny

The two executions also draw attention to the scale of capital punishment in Iran. According to Iran Human Rights and Together Against the Death Penalty, at least 1,639 people were executed in Iran in 2025, the highest annual figure recorded by Iran Human Rights since 1989. The organizations recorded a 68% increase from the 975 executions documented in 2024.

Their research indicates that more than 93% of the executions recorded in 2025 were not officially announced by Iranian authorities. Drug-related offences accounted for 795 executions, while 747 people were executed following convictions for murder under qisas. At least 57 executions involved security-related charges, including moharebeh, baghy and efsad-fil-arz.

The execution of Hemmati and Nik-Andish therefore comes at a time when the death penalty remains a central issue in international scrutiny of Iran's judicial system, particularly in cases involving political unrest and national-security charges.