Iran’s Supreme Court has annulled the death sentences of six men accused of involvement in the killing of a Basij militia member during the 2022 protests in Tehran’s Ekbatan neighborhood, their lawyer said ahead of the uprising's third anniversary.
Payam Derafshan, who represents one of the defendants, told Didban Iran website on Saturday that Branch 9 of the Supreme Court had accepted appeals filed by the defendants in the case and overturned the death verdicts.
The lower court’s rulings had sentenced Milad Armon, Alireza Barmarzpournak, Amir Mohammad Khosh-Eghbal, Alireza Kafaee, Navid Najaran, and Hossein Ne’mati to death.
Since the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising which started following the death in custody of Mahsa "Jina" Amini on September 16, courts have repeatedly handed down death sentences against demonstrators, drawing international condemnation.
The Supreme Court’s reversal in the Ekbatan case offers a rare reprieve in a system where capital punishment has been used repeatedly against protesters since the uprising began. What happens next depends on how lower courts interpret the Supreme Court’s ruling and whether bail is granted for the detainees.
The six men's case has now been returned to a criminal court for further review over legal deficiencies, Derafshan said. Given their two years in custody awaiting trial, he said their release on bail was now warranted.
In November 2022, Basij member Arman Alivardi was wounded during demonstrations in Ekbatan and died two days later. In the aftermath, security forces arrested more than 50 residents of the district en masse, many of them young men.
Since their arrests, various reports have alleged that the detainees were subjected to torture and coerced into confessions, which prosecutors used to justify the harshest charges.
By November 2024, two years after the Ekbatan arrests, a Tehran criminal court sentenced six of the defendants to death, relying on disputed confessions and reports from security agencies.
Rights advocates, including four German lawmakers, said the proceedings, built on testimony obtained under duress, amounted to little more than a formality unlikely to yield a fair judgment. Other defendants in the case face separate charges of “enmity against God”, a vague and politically loaded capital offense.
The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the death sentences reflects both the severity of the Ekbatan prosecutions and the uncertainty now facing dozens of other detainees still at risk of execution.
Iran has already executed at least 12 people detained during the nationwide protests of 2022, including Mohsen Shekari, Majidreza Rahnavard, Mohammad Mehdi Karami, and Mohammad Hosseini.
A UN fact-finding mission said Iran’s violent protest crackdown and discrimination against women equate to grave rights violations, some rising to crimes against humanity.
Rights monitors estimate that about 70 political prisoners across the country remain at risk of execution, with more than 100 others facing potential death sentences on similar charges.
