Economic crisis drives Iranians to sell hair, rent laptops

Omid Behzad and Pouria Safvat, the judiciary's news outlet said, were executed on Monday, after Iran's Supreme Court upheld their death sentences.

According to Mizan, the two men transmitted “coordinates, images and information about Iranian military and security sites to officers from Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and affiliated communication channels” during the 12-day and 40-day wars in 2025 and 2026.

The pair, the report said, were identified and arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' intelligence organization but did not specify when, where or how they were detained.

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  Iran executes 20-year-old protester as fears grow for other detainees

The judiciary outlet also said Behzad maintained direct contact with the administrator of a Telegram channel linked to Israel and supported the US and Israeli military campaign against the Islamic Republic.

Mizan cited Behzad's confessions as evidence, although rights groups have for years documented that Iranian authorities have extracted confessions under coercion, torture or harsh detention conditions.

Iranian authorities use broadly worded charges such as espionage, acting against national security, armed rebellion, enmity against God and corruption on earth to crush dissent and remove political opponents.

Human rights organizations say these labels are routinely applied to protesters, dissidents and political prisoners to portray them as security threats and provide a legal pretext for execution.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and UN experts have documented repeated cases in which such convictions were issued by revolutionary courts after grossly unfair or highly expedited proceedings, with defendants denied meaningful access to lawyers and verdicts based on torture-tainted forced confessions.

Charges against Safvat

Safvat, Mizan said, photographed Iranian air defense systems from rooftops during the 12-day war and sent the images through communication channels linked to Israel.

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The outlet said some of the locations he photographed were later bombed. Without providing evidence, it also alleged Safvat had direct contact with Mossad in some instances and sent messages to Iran International.

The court, according to Mizan, sentenced both men to death based on what it described as “explicit confessions, technical evidence, recovered messages and other evidence.” The sentences were upheld by the Supreme Court before being carried out on Monday.

Wider crackdown

Iran has intensified arrests, prosecutions and executions in recent months, with authorities sentencing or executing dozens of people on charges including espionage, involvement in protests and membership of the exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

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  Iran executes two protesters amid heavy security in Isfahan

Human rights groups and activists say the authorities have expanded the crackdown following recent military confrontations, arguing that the campaign is intended to deter renewed public unrest over Iran's deepening economic and political crises.

Iran's latest wave of public hangings of protesters amounts to "killings" and "murders" that form part of a continuing crime against humanity, former United Nations prosecutor Professor Payam Akhavan told Iran International's 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."

“We must strive to compel the enemy to honor what it signed,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on X Sunday, referring to the Iran-US memorandum of understanding signed in June. “This memorandum enhances the security of our country, the region and our allies.”

Trump said on Saturday that he had canceled the attack after Iran and other Middle Eastern countries requested a pause, saying the sides had agreed on the broad “perimeters” of a deal that would include reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending Iran’s nuclear threat.

The Associated Press, citing a regional official involved in mediation efforts, reported that a proposal announced by Trump over the weekend calls for the US and Iran to resume negotiations and work through the remaining obstacles to a deal.

The proposal would reopen Hormuz and halt attacks across the region, including attacks by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq on Persian Gulf countries and Jordan, the official said. In exchange, Washington would end its naval blockade and allow Tehran to export oil under the tentative ceasefire arrangement.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said negotiations with Oman over the strait were nearing completion.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the talks were bilateral and aimed at agreeing a mechanism for the strait, adding that they did not concern any other party.

“The understanding with Oman over a new transit route has nothing to do with whether the Strait of Hormuz remains open or closed,” Baghaei said. “The strait was closed because the US reneged on its commitments and imposed a blockade.”

Push for de-escalation

Regional governments continued diplomatic outreach on Sunday. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged dialogue and de-escalation in his call with Trump, while the kings of Jordan and Bahrain discussed efforts to restore security and stability in the region.

Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister also urged implementation of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding, including guarantees for freedom of navigation through Hormuz, during separate calls with the Saudi and Jordanian foreign ministers.

Military preparations nevertheless continued. Israel’s Channel 12 reported, citing senior US officials, that CENTCOM had prepared strikes against Iranian energy and infrastructure targets, with Israel expected to participate.

Qatar asked Trump for another 24 hours for negotiations, while Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman warned that military action could trigger wider regional escalation and damage oil facilities in Persian Gulf states, the report said.

Channel 12 said negotiators were close to a proposed Hormuz arrangement that included renewing the ceasefire, opening the strait toll-free for 60 days, establishing new shipping routes and resuming US-Iran negotiations based on the memorandum of understanding.

War clouds linger

But not all Persian Gulf states backed the diplomatic push. The United Arab Emirates had pressed Trump to take more decisive action against Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing senior officials from Persian Gulf states familiar with the discussions.

The officials suggested the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would not compromise until the US escalated, took control of Hormuz and perhaps considered ground operations.

An Iranian diplomat told the newspaper that the IRGC was considering preemptive strikes even if the US did not attack, should diplomacy fail.

The Israeli military remained on high alert despite Trump's decision, assessing that Tehran could still spring surprises, Channel 12 reported.

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen, who sits on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet, said there was close security and intelligence coordination between Israel and the United States on developments across the region.

"With or without an agreement, and regardless of any external commitments, if Iran attempts to renew its nuclear program or advance its ballistic missile industries, we will be there. We will take action, and we will strike," Cohen added.

Iran’s acting defense minister said Tehran treated every threat from its adversaries as credible and used it to strengthen military readiness and deterrence.

By “overseas media,” Ghalibaf was referring to Persian-language outlets based outside Iran, a term Iranian officials sometimes use to refer to such broadcasters. Iran International was the first outlet to announce Khamenei’s death.

Ghalibaf said officials had initially decided to wait until 8 a.m. the following morning, when they planned to announce his death alongside the formation of a new Leadership Council.

“At 12:30 at night, the television channels abroad announced the martyrdom,” Ghalibaf said, adding that he and Ali Larijani re-established contact around 1 a.m. and decided the original plan could no longer stand.

Officials feared losing control of the streets

Ghalibaf said officials instead decided to announce Khamenei’s death around dawn, while people were eating their pre-dawn Ramadan meal, and immediately call supporters onto the streets.

“We decided that we absolutely had to announce it at dawn, when people were at the suhoor table, and at the same time say: whether you’ve eaten or not, everyone come out into the streets,” he said.

“Otherwise, believe me, the situation in the streets could have taken a completely different turn,” Ghalibaf added.

He described the street as one of four fronts that authorities needed to manage alongside the military, diplomacy and government services. “The military front is one front, diplomacy is one front, services are another, and the street is also a front,” he said.

Street pressure later turned on Ghalibaf

The comments shed new light on the government’s efforts to mobilize supporters immediately after Khamenei’s death. But some of the hardline demonstrators who took to the streets later turned their anger on Ghalibaf and other officials over negotiations with Washington.

The street criticism echoed a revolt among a small but vocal group of ultraconservative lawmakers, who accused Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator in talks with the United States, of crossing leadership red lines and shielding the negotiations from parliamentary scrutiny.

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.

The chaotic gathering at the luxury shopping complex, where teenagers and young adults—predominantly from Generation Z and Generation Alpha—assembled to meet content creator Nima Tekedo, triggered widespread debate across Iranian media and academic circles.

Although officials were forced to confront Generation Z during the nationwide protests of 2022, several sociologists argue that Generation Alpha remains almost entirely outside the state's field of vision.

Moderate daily Shargh and centrist newspaper Sazandegi both argued that the surprise surrounding the Iran Mall incident reflected a deeper failure to understand younger Iranians.

They warned that repeatedly overlooking new generations had already left authorities unprepared for successive waves of unrest since 2017 and cautioned that the same blind spot persists today.

The gathering had been publicly announced on YouTube, Telegram and Instagram, yet authorities appeared unaware that thousands would attend.

A parallel universe

Sociologist Nima Shojaei told Shargh that over the past two decades traditional forms of political participation, including elections, campaigns and party politics, had steadily lost their appeal among young Iranians, while their social lives increasingly unfolded beyond the state's view.

He argued that reference groups had shifted dramatically, leaving the government unable to understand the evolving identities of younger generations.

Shojaei also pointed to the contradictions of a state that continues to portray all Iranian youth through an ideological lens—via state media, school textbooks and Friday prayer sermons—as devout Muslims committed to official values.

Believing its own narrative, he argued, the state gradually lost sight of the society it sought to govern.

The Iran Mall gathering, Shojaei said, was neither a political protest nor an act of resistance. Rather, it reflected a generation retreating into everyday life after losing faith in conventional politics.

‘Gen Z charting its course’

Another sociologist, Foad Habibi, criticized commentators who responded by blaming or mocking teenagers instead of examining broader social change.

"Attacking powerless youth is the cheapest form of analysis because it carries no personal cost, whereas criticizing state power does," he said.

Habibi agreed that the problem lay not with young people themselves.

"Generation Z has not erred; it has simply charted its own course and moved forward. The failure lies with policymakers and social scientists," he said.

Sazandegi argued that the incident highlighted a broader shift in cultural authority from formal institutions to decentralized online networks.

The paper pointed to similar episodes that had repeatedly caught authorities off guard, including a large gathering in Tehran Pars in 2024 to see hip-hop artist GodPouri.

Unlike traditional mobilization built around parties or hierarchical organizations, the newspaper argued, today's youth assemble rapidly through shared online interests and peer-to-peer communication.

What appears to older generations as a spontaneous crowd is, in reality, a highly networked social world capable of mobilizing thousands within hours.

For Sazandegi, the Iran Mall gathering was therefore less about a celebrity appearance than a glimpse of a generation that no longer looks to political parties, religious institutions or state media for authority, but chooses its own communities, its own heroes and increasingly, its own way of life.