Iran’s judiciary said early Saturday it executed Mehran Bahramian, a protester detained during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in central Iran, despite torture allegations and pleas from rights groups to stop the sentence.
The judiciary’s Mizan news agency said the death sentence was carried out in Isfahan. Hours earlier, the Iran Human Rights Society reported his family had been summoned for a final visit.
Bahramian endured years in prison, where rights advocates say he was tortured.
He was finally sentenced to death, together with his brother, Fazel, after the Samirom Revolutionary Court convicted them of “enmity against God" over their alleged involvement in the killing of a member of the Revolutionary Guard's Basij paramilitary.
Rights groups say the case stems from unrest in Samirom in November 2022, when security forces killed at least three people — Abbasi, Morad Bahramian, and Moslem Houshangi — during nationwide demonstrations.
Their 40-day memorial in January 2023 turned into a mass protest in which a Basij force, Mohsen Rezaei, was killed, prompting a wave of arrests.
Mehran and Fazel Bahramian were detained 10 days later and held in solitary confinement at an IRGC detention center in Dolatabad, Isfahan. According to relatives, Mehran suffered broken ribs and a ruptured eardrum under interrogation, while Fazel sustained severe head and facial injuries.
The Bahramian family and other relatives of detainees were pressured to stay silent. Some shut down social media accounts out of fear.
Rights groups condemned today’s execution as part of a broader campaign of intimidation. The “No to Execution” campaign said the killing demonstrated the government’s reliance on fear, adding that only continued resistance could end what it called a cycle of death sentences targeting protesters.
In June, Iranian authorities executed Mojahed (Abbas) Kourkour, another protester detained during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, who was convicted of charges including "enmity against God" and "corruption on earth" following a deadly incident in the southwestern city of Izeh.
From July 23 to August 22, at least 160 people were executed in Iran, averaging one every five hours, according to a report by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), which warned that the pace of executions in the country is accelerating.
Iran accounted for 64% of all known global executions in 2024, with at least 972 people executed, according to Amnesty International, in what the rights group says is the government's ongoing campaign of mass suppression of dissent.
