More Iranian teenagers at risk of execution, rights groups warn

His comments came days after Iran publicly hanged two protesters in the central city of Isfahan, prompting renewed international condemnation and a rare display of public defiance.

He argued that the executions cannot be separated from the mass killing of protesters during January's nationwide uprising.

"There is no doubt that we have a crime against humanity," Akhavan told Eye for Iran.

“What we actually have in Iran are arbitrary executions. These are killings. They are murders,” Akhavan said. "Specifically, the case can be made that this is a crime of extermination, given the large scale of the killings."

Akhavan, who testified before the UN Human Rights Council during its January special session on Iran, said the scale and method of the killings could support the more specific charge of extermination.

The crime against humanity of extermination involves mass or large-scale killing. Unlike genocide, it does not require proof that the perpetrators intended to destroy a protected national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

Public hangings provoke defiance in Isfahan

Iran publicly hanged Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi on July 28 in Isfahan's Alikhani Square after accusing them of involvement in the killing of four police officers during the January 8 unrest.

The two men were among a group sentenced to death in connection with the case. Golmohammad Mohammadi and Erfan Esfandiari were executed in prison on July 19, while eight others reportedly remain under sentence of death.

The judiciary says Safari and Sepahi took part in the killings. Rights groups, however, have raised serious concerns about the proceedings, including restrictions on access to lawyers and case files, the rejection of potentially exculpatory evidence and the use of televised confessions that may have been obtained under coercion.

UN human rights experts called on Iran to halt the executions one day before the hangings, warning that coerced confessions must not be admitted as evidence and that broadcasting them before trial violates the presumption of innocence.

Rather than intimidating the public into silence, the hangings triggered a rare display of defiance.

Hundreds of people gathered near the execution site before dawn. Videos showed crowds booing police and chanting “shame on you” as the call to prayer rang out. Security forces later dispersed them through surrounding streets, with witnesses reporting the use of tear gas, Tasers and warning shots.

An online campaign opposing the death penalty was shared hundreds of thousands of times within a day. At Ghezel Hesar prison near Tehran, an estimated 1,500 death-row prisoners also staged a hunger strike as part of the “No to Executions” campaign.

“A death sentence which is carried out without any due process and on legal grounds that are entirely unacceptable is not really a lawful execution,” he said. “It becomes a form of murder or extrajudicial execution.”

International human rights law permits capital punishment only for the most serious crimes in countries that have not abolished it and only following strict respect for due process.

Akhavan said many of Iran’s death sentences instead rely on vague national-security charges, including moharebeh, or “waging war against God,” as well as forced confessions and trials in courts that cannot be considered independent or impartial.

“What we’re witnessing today in this surge in executions is not an isolated phenomenon,” Akhavan said. “It is inextricably connected with the events of January and it is really a continuation of the same criminal transaction.”

Article 7 of the Rome Statute defines crimes against humanity as certain acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.

From January’s massacre to extermination

The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran previously concluded that serious violations committed during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising amounted to crimes against humanity.

Its investigation into the January 2026 crackdown is ongoing. Akhavan acknowledged that the mission must complete its own investigation before issuing formal conclusions, but said his legal assessment is clear.

He cited the internet blackout, restrictions on reporting, allegations that hospitals were pressured to record gunshot deaths as natural causes and accounts of bodies being transported in refrigerated trucks and potentially buried in unmarked graves.

He also pointed to statements by senior Iranian officials depicting protesters as combatants, foreign agents or people “waging war against God,” language he said effectively created a licence to kill.

There is also evidence of snipers, heavy machine guns and armour-piercing ammunition being used against unarmed protesters.

“The case can be made that this is a crime of extermination, given the large scale of the killings.”

Executions as a display of control

Iran carried out at least 2,159 executions in 2025, Amnesty International has said, most in drug-related cases.

Since the January uprising, rights groups have documented a sharp increase in politically motivated executions. Amnesty says at least 52 people have been arbitrarily executed this year for alleged offences connected to the protests following torture-tainted and grossly unfair Revolutionary Court proceedings. At least 60 others remain at risk, including three who were children at the time of their alleged offences.

Public political executions remain comparatively rare. The last widely reported case was the 2022 hanging of Majidreza Rahnavard during the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising.

Akhavan said the return of cranes as public gallows was therefore particularly shocking and appeared designed to project strength and frighten a population that continues to challenge the state.

“Under cover of war, they are escalating executions in order to create fear,” he said.

“The biggest threat to the Islamic Republic is not the US and Israeli military operations, as damaging and unlawful as they may be. It is the Iranian people first and foremost.”

The authorities have now expanded their pressure beyond those facing execution. Tehran’s prosecutor has opened cases against an unspecified number of people accused of opposing executions or supporting defendants linked to the January uprising and the recent war.

More than 200 bodies passed through Shohadaye Ashayer Hospital during the crackdown, according to an Iran International investigation based on more than two dozen sources, including medical personnel, eyewitnesses and people close to victims' families, as well as hospital records and videos obtained from inside the facility.

One eyewitness said at least 70 critically wounded protesters who could have been saved were transferred to the morgue instead of receiving further treatment.

Others were removed from treatment wards by security personnel before later reappearing in the morgue with fresh gunshot wounds to the upper body or what staff described as "finishing shots."

Iran International has so far verified the identities of 23 people killed in the city.

Hospital under siege

According to a member of the hospital's medical staff, Shohadaye Ashayer became the only hospital authorized to treat people wounded during the crackdown.

Armed security forces surrounded the hospital while police, intelligence officers and other security personnel operated inside the building. Officers stood over doctors and nurses as they treated patients, confiscated staff mobile phones and prevented them from contacting their families.

Hospital staff were effectively confined inside the facility for three days, the medical worker said. Several employees were arrested, while security forces moved through treatment wards identifying wounded protesters for detention.

Videos obtained by Iran International show dozens of bloodied bodies, many naked or partially unclothed, lying uncovered across the morgue floor and an adjoining room.

Some still had oxygen tubes in their mouths and electrocardiogram pads attached, suggesting they had been receiving treatment before being moved.

Several appeared to have been shot directly in the forehead, while others were covered with pellet wounds. Some had suffered catastrophic head injuries, with parts of their skulls missing. Several bodies also showed severe injuries to the genital area.

Some remained handcuffed despite bearing fatal gunshot wounds.

From operating room to morgue

Eyewitnesses described the hospital as overwhelmed, with blood covering corridors and bodies filling both the courtyard and the morgue. Multiple witnesses estimated that between 200 and 250 bodies passed through the hospital during the crackdown.

A student at Khorramabad University of Medical Sciences who witnessed patients arriving at the hospital described a similar pattern.

According to the student, wounded protesters repeatedly arrived alive on January 8 and 9, only for their deaths to be announced around 20 minutes after they had been taken into operating rooms. The student said the pattern was repeated across numerous patients.

The student also recalled a protester admitted on January 22 with extensive pellet wounds and a severe infection. Before treatment could be completed, security forces removed the patient from the hospital despite objections from the attending physician and took them to an unknown location.

Crackdown beyond the hospital

Witnesses said protests spread across much of Khorramabad on January 8 and 9, drawing tens of thousands of people into the streets.

They described security forces firing military-grade weapons, sniper rifles, shotguns and pellet guns at demonstrators, with several witnesses saying protesters were deliberately shot in the head and chest.

One witness said they personally saw at least five people killed after being struck from behind by bursts of gunfire.

Witnesses said security forces prevented many wounded protesters from reaching medical care, leaving some to bleed to death in the streets. Those who managed to reach Shohadaye Ashayer Hospital remained at risk of arrest, abduction or forced removal.

Witnesses also described an internet shutdown, movement restrictions and the widespread deployment of plainclothes officers, the Basij, the Revolutionary Guards and police units throughout the city.

Families under pressure

Eyewitnesses said bodies accumulated in the courtyard of Shohadaye Ashayer Hospital on January 9 while Basij forces prevented relatives from approaching them.

Some families removed the bodies of loved ones immediately, fearing security forces would seize them.

Among the victims whose identities Iran International has verified was Hossein Yaghmaei, who died after being shot and taken to a nearby home.

Retired municipal employee Hojjat Ahmadian was also among those killed. People familiar with his case said authorities pressured his family to record his death as suicide to avoid losing his pension.

Abolfazl Ghadyani, a veteran Islamic Revolution-era official turned fierce critic of Tehran; Mohammad Najafi, a human rights lawyer jailed for exposing a protester's death in custody; and Reza Valizadeh, an Iranian-American journalist and former Radio Farda contributor, issued the joint statement from Tehran's Evin prison.

The three political prisoners said the Islamic Republic was accelerating executions to inflict revenge on defenseless citizens for military setbacks against international adversaries.

"The corrupt regime of the Islamic Republic has once again turned war into a license to kill citizens," the prisoners wrote. "Whatever collapsed of its hollow authority on the battlefield, it is now trying to rebuild on the gallows."

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Executions described as 'begging for authority'

Executing protesters following show trials does not represent the administration of justice but rather "begging for authority on a path of blood," the signatories wrote.

They said Iranian authorities were rushing executions to take out frustrations on ordinary citizens that they could not exact on the US and Israel, seeking to crush any protesting voice.

"Today the hereditary regime of Mojtaba Khamenei, who like his father is a bloodthirsty and criminal tyrant who shared and partnered in all his father's crimes and plunder, has fallen from governance to tunnel-keeping," the statement said.

The prisoners added that the regime and its military-security cliques, unable to manage severe economic and social crises, were relying on a triad of "execution, crackdown, and imprisonment" to control the population outside their power centers.

Isfahan hangings spark grief and anger

The statement follows the executions of two young protesters early on Tuesday, Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi, who were hanged in Isfahan amid a heavy security deployment around Alikhani Square.

The two men were among 12 defendants convicted in the Alikhani Square case stemming from clashes during protests in January. Their hangings brought the total number of individuals executed in the case to four, following the executions of Golmohammad Mohammadi and Erfan Esfandiari on July 19. Eight others remain under sentence of death.

The hangings in Isfahan triggered widespread grief, anger, and public defiance across Iranian cities and abroad. Witnesses described crowds gathering near Alikhani Square overnight despite intimidation by security forces, while messages across social media described the executions as a crime that hardened public resolve rather than suppressed dissent.

UN human rights experts led by Special Rapporteur Mai Sato had urged Iranian authorities on Monday to halt the executions, warning that closed-court trials based on televised confessions violated basic international legal standards.

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  Iranian protesters’ executions stir grief and harden resolve across Iran

Surge in capital punishment draws global alarm

The joint statement from Evin prison comes amid a broader surge in death sentences and executions across Iran over the past year, particularly following the January protests and escalating regional conflict.

Data compiled by Iran International shows that the Iranian judiciary has executed more than 50 political prisoners since the beginning of the current Iranian year, with dozens more facing execution.

Rights groups and civil society leaders have issued repeated warnings over the escalation. Amnesty International reported that at least 60 people, including three individuals under the age of 18 at the time of their alleged offenses, face imminent execution in Iran.

The three Evin prisoners concluded their statement by warning that no government achieves security or legitimacy through "the accumulation of corpses and a fear production line," adding that if the ruling establishment fails to yield to the public will, "Iran will become more ruined."

The sources told Iran International that Amirhossein Nobakht Pardasti was wounded by pellet fire and detained during the January protests at around 10 p.m. on January 8 near 30-Metri Street in Bagher Shahr, south of Tehran.

They said he was taken to hospital, where agents used blades and box cutters to remove skin and flesh bearing the tattoos before shooting him dead in what they described as an execution-style killing.

Nobakht Pardasti had previously been arrested during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, when he was 16.

‘Signs of torture’

His family said they received no information about his whereabouts after his detention.

When they eventually recovered his body from Kahrizak, they found extensive signs of torture, according to the sources, including severe bruising across his face and body and apparent fractures to his jaw, nose and shoulders.

The section of his arm bearing the tattoos of Reza Shah and an imperial crown had been cut away, with skin and flesh removed, the sources said.

They added that Nobakht Pardasti also had the word "Iran" tattooed on his throat and that pressure marks consistent with strangulation or restraint were visible around his neck.

Against nationalist symbols

Nobakht Pardasti's case is not the first in which Iranian authorities have been accused of targeting tattoos carrying nationalist or royalist symbolism.

One of the best-known cases was Majidreza Rahnavard, a protester executed in Mashhad on Dec. 12, 2022.

Rahnavard had a Lion and Sun emblem tattooed on his left forearm. Images published after his arrest showed the tattooed arm badly injured and immobilised in a cast and bandages.

A person close to Rahnavard told Iran International that agents repeatedly struck the arm with batons and stun guns because of the tattoo, eventually breaking it.

While the accounts cannot independently establish an official policy, the similarities between Nobakht Pardasti's case and earlier reports suggest security forces may have deliberately targeted tattoos depicting pre-revolutionary Iranian symbols as a form of punishment, humiliation and torture.

Hours earlier, she was at the front of the crowd, chanting “Long live the Shah,” kicking away a tear-gas canister and urging fellow protesters not to be afraid.

It was Yalda's second consecutive day protesting. On January 8, she had joined demonstrations in the Kanal area of Fardis, west of the Iranian capital, with her father and younger sister before returning home after heavy tear gas left her father's eyes burning.

At 4 p.m. the following day, Yalda told her family it was time to go back.

“We have to get ready and return to the streets,” she said. “We have to join the protests.”

This time, all four members of the family went together.

The demonstrations were part of nationwide protests that began in late December, during which state security forces killed tens of thousands of protesters across Iran.

At the protest, Yalda moved towards the front of the crowd.

“Don't be afraid,” she told fellow protesters as tear gas was fired at them. “There aren't many of them.”

Masked security forces then arrived on motorcycles and opened fire. A bullet struck Yalda's leg.

“My leg is burning. I can't walk,” she told her father.

He put an arm around her and tried to help her keep moving.

“Try to go a little further so they don't do anything to you,” he said.

As the security forces continued firing, Yalda's father tried to shield his family with his body. When he looked back, he saw her face covered in blood.

According to her family, eight bullets had struck her from behind, across her back and shoulder.

Her father carried her to hospital, but she died at the scene. Her body was transferred to Behesht-e Sakineh cemetery and mortuary complex near Karaj before being returned to the family five days later.

The family was warned not to hold a memorial ceremony and pressured to say that protesters, rather than security forces, had killed her — an account they rejected.

The phone case

Behind Yalda's phone case was a photograph she had carried since 2022: Nika Shakarami.

Nika, also 16, became one of the defining symbols of Iran's Woman, Life, Freedom movement after she was killed during the 2022 protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini following her detention for an alleged violation of Iran's mandatory hijab laws.

As Yalda prepared to return to the streets that January, Nika's story remained on her mind.

When her parents asked how they were supposed to cope if anything happened to her, Yalda pointed to the photograph.

“What did Nika's parents do?” she replied. “You should do the same. I am going to the streets to fight for freedom and a better future.”