Iran | Juveniles among 30 people at risk of the death penalty amid expedited grossly unfair trials connected to uprising

The Iranian authorities must immediately halt all plans to execute eight individuals sentenced to death after being convicted of committing offences during the January 2026 nationwide protests, Amnesty International said today.  The organization is urging authorities to quash their convictions and death sentences, and promptly put an end to expedited torture-tainted grossly unfair trials against at least 22 others in connection to the uprising.

The organization has gathered information about at least 30 individuals facing the death penalty for alleged offences linked to the January 2026 protests. They include at least eight individuals convicted and sentenced to death in February within weeks of their arrests. They are Saleh Mohammadi, aged 18, Mohammad Amin Biglari, aged 19, Ali Fahim, Abolfazl Salehi Siavashani, Amirhossein Hatami, Shahin Vahedparast Kolor, Shahab Zohdi and Yaser Rajaifar.

At least 22 others, including two 17-year-old juveniles, are at risk of the death penalty as they undergo or await trial proceedings marred by torture-tainted “confessions” and other serious violations of the right to a fair trial, including denial of access to lawyers during the investigation phase, and refusal to recognize independent legal counsel appointed by families for trial.

“The Iranian authorities are once again laying bare the depth of their disregard for the right to life and justice by threatening expedited executions and imposing death sentences in fast-tracked trials, only weeks after arrest. In weaponizing the death penalty, they are seeking to instill fear and crush the spirit of a population demanding fundamental change,” said Diana Eltahawy, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.  

“Children and young adults form the bulk of those caught in the machinery of state repression following the January protests, denied access to effective legal representation and subjected to torture or other ill-treatment and incommunicado detention to extract forced ‘confessions’. The international community must take coordinated global action, pressuring the Iranian authorities to stop using the court system as a conveyor belt for executions.”

Amnesty International believes the real number of those at risk of the death penalty is much higher as authorities systematically warn families against speaking out and subject those detained to incommunicado detention, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment to extract forced “confessions”.

Officials have arrested thousands of protesters and dissidents in connection to the January 2026 uprising, and repeatedly threatened to seek “the maximum punishment [meaning the death penalty] … without any delays… in the shortest possible time”.

Amnesty International is calling on all UN member states as well as international and regional bodies to take urgent coordinated diplomatic action, demanding that the Iranian authorities: quash the convictions and death sentences of Saleh Mohammadi and Mohammad Amin Biglari; refrain from issuing further death sentences; and ensure that anyone charged with a recognizable criminal offence is tried in accordance with the right to a fair trial without recourse to the death penalty.

All states must also press the Iranian authorities to grant UN Special Procedures and the UN Fact‑Finding Mission on Iran, as well as representatives of embassies in Iran, access to detention facilities and the ability to observe trials.

Amnesty International has issued an Urgent Action urging global activism to stop the executions. 

Torture and grossly unfair proceedings

Saleh Mohammadi, aged 18, was sentenced to death by Criminal Court One in Qom on 4 February, less than three weeks after his arrest on 15 January 2026 in connection with the death of a security agent during protests in Qom on 8 January 2026, an accusation he denies. The verdict, reviewed by Amnesty International, shows that he retracted his “confessions” in court saying they were extracted under torture, but the court dismissed this without any investigation. An informed source said he sustained hand fractures as a result of beatings.

Mohammad Amin Biglari, aged 19, and six others Ali Fahim, Abolfazl Salehi Siavashani, Amirhossein Hatami, Shahin Vahedparast Kolor, Shahab Zohdi and Yaser Rajaifar were sentenced to death for “enmity against god” (moharebeh) by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran for allegedly setting a Basij base on fire. Their death sentences were issued on 9 February, about a month after their arrest. An informed source said Mohammad Amin Biglari was forcibly disappeared for weeks before his transfer to Ghezel Hesar prison in Alborz province. Authorities denied him access to a lawyer during investigations then assigned him a state-appointed lawyer who failed to represent his interests during a fast-tracked trial based on forced “confessions”. They have since denied an independent lawyer, appointed by his family, access to his casefile, hindering his ability to file an appeal before the Supreme Court.

Ehsan Hosseinipour Hesarloo, 18, Matin Mohammadi and Erfan Amiri, both 17, are undergoing a fast-tracked, torture-tainted grossly unfair trial before Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran for alleged involvement in an 8 January 2026 fire at a Basij base inside a mosque in Pakdasht, Tehran province, that killed two Basij agents. An informed source told Amnesty International that Basij agents arrested the teenagers earlier that day, before the incident, and that Ehsan was forced to “confess” after severe beatings and when interrogators put a gun in his mouth. The source said the judge has refused to recognize the representation of at least three lawyers chosen by Ehsan’s family, threatened them, and imposed a state‑appointed lawyer who failed to defend him effectively.

His 17‑year‑old co‑defendants remain in a detention facility for children, facing capital charges, despite international human rights law strictly prohibiting the imposition of the death penalty on those aged under 18 at the time of alleged offence.

Others facing similar fast‑tracked, torture‑tainted trials include 35-year-old Abolfazl Karimi, arrested on 6 January in Tehran after trying to help two women shot in the legs. An informed source told Amnesty International he was shot with metal pellets, beaten, denied medical care for his injuries, and forced to sign self‑incriminating statements while blindfolded.  Around 12 February, he and 13 others arrested in connection to protests on unclear charges were told by the judge presiding over Branch 15 of Revolutionary Court in Tehran that they were “being sentenced to death”.

Others at risk include Shervin Bagherian Jebeli, 18, Danial Niazi, 18,  Mohammad Abbasi, 55, and Amirhossein Azarpira, 24, and Mohammadreza Tabari. 

Urgent need for comprehensive international justice approach

Widespread patterns of torture and enforced disappearances in Iran along with arbitrary deprivation of life, including through both mass unlawful killings during protest dispersals and arbitrary executions, have continued and remain rooted in systemic impunity.

Amnesty International renews its call on UN member states and regional and international bodies to pursue a comprehensive international justice approach.

States must call on the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Iran to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. They should also consider establishing international justice mechanisms aimed at pursuing prompt criminal investigations and prosecutions of those who have committed crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations.

At the national level, states should also initiate coordinated criminal investigations under universal or other forms of extraterritorial jurisdiction, with a view to issuing arrest warrants and initiating prosecutions where sufficient evidence exists.

Background

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to kill the prisoner. The death penalty is a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

Since the Woman Life Freedom uprising of 2022, authorities have increasingly weaponized the death penalty to instill fear, crush dissent and punish marginalized communities. In 2025, the authorities carried out the highest number of executions recorded since 1989.

Source: Amnesty International, Staff, February 20, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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