According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Rasht (Lakan) Central Prison on 29 April 2026. His identity has been established as Jamal Hassanzadeh, a 37-year-old father of one.
Informed sources told IHRNGO that he been arrested four years ago on murder charges following an unintentional altercation and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder by the Criminal Court.
At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.
Those charged with the umbrella term of “intentional murder” are sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) regardless of intent or circumstances due to a lack of grading in law. Once a defendant has been convicted, the victim’s family are required to choose between death as retribution, diya (blood money) or forgiveness.
Crucially, while an indicative diya amount is set by the Judiciary every year, there is no legal limit to how much can be demanded by families of the victims. IHRNGO has recorded many cases where defendants are executed because they cannot afford to pay the blood money. Should the victim’s family choose execution, they are not only encouraged to attend, but also to physically carry out the execution themselves.
According to IHRNGO’s 2025 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 747 people including 48 women, were executed for murder charges, the highest number of qisas executions since 2010. Under 7% of the recorded qisas executions were announced by official sources. In 2025, IHRNGO also recorded 566 cases of families choosing diya or forgiveness instead of qisas executions.
Execution in Urmia
Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 3 May 2026: State media reported that Mehrab Abdollahzadeh, a Kurdish protester arrested in connection with the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests, was executed in Urmia. He was subjected to torture to extract a forced confession regarding the injury of an IRGC member who later died. Mehrab is the 14th protester to be executed in relation to the nationwide uprising.
Condemning Mehrab Abdollahzadeh’s execution in the strongest terms, IHRNGO draws the international community’s attention to the execution of 21 political prisoners, including 11 protesters, in the last 45 days.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of the organisation, stated: “We are concerned that the daily execution of political prisoners will continue in the weeks and months to come. An immediate halt to all executions and a moratorium on the death penalty must be a central condition in any negotiations with the Islamic Republic.”
According to Tasnim News Agency, Mehrab Abdollahzadeh, a 29-year-old Kurdish “Woman, Life, Freedom” protester, was executed at an undisclosed location in Urmia province. Kurdistan Human Rights Network reported that he was transferred to an unknown location from Urmia Central Prison on 30 April.
Mehrab, who worked as a barber prior to his arrest on 22 October 2022 at the height of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” nationwide protests, was subjected to 42 days of physical and psychological torture to extract confessions to injuring an IRGC member on 22 September 2022. According to official reports, the IRGC member died in hospital three days later.
In court, Mehrab denied the charges, stating that he had been tortured to confess, “but the judge smirked and said: ‘you’ve all learnt to say you were tortured’ and asserted that ‘none of our experts (interrogators) torture defendants, you’re all lying.’”
Mehrab was sentenced to death on the charge of efsad-fil-arz (corruption on earth) by Branch 1 of the Urmia Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Najafzadeh on 19 September 2024.
After the rejection of his appeal, his lawyer, Sidad Shirzad, outlined on social media that the seven-volume case file was riddled with severe procedural, jurisdictional, and evidentiary flaws. The lawyer noted that the judiciary had unlawfully tried the case as efsad-fil-arz in the Revolutionary Court, deliberately ignoring multiple legal objections from defence lawyers and even internal acknowledgements from judicial officials.
Despite the involvement of juvenile co-defendants, authorities refused to transfer the case to the Juvenile Criminal Court or Criminal Court One to properly examine it as a murder charge. Crucially, the lawyer highlighted a complete absence of both forensic and testimonial evidence.
Mehrab was formally charged without a lawyer present, and he never made a valid legal confession to an investigator or judge, consistently denying that he struck the victim. Furthermore, he was never implicated in the statements made by the deceased, his colleague, witnesses or the other defendants.
The medical procedures were equally flawed, as the deceased had been buried without an autopsy after the treating physician issued a burial permit citing kidney failure as the cause of death. Ultimately, even Branch 9 of the Supreme Court explicitly noted in its verdict that other defendants played the central role in inflicting the fatal injuries, effectively demonstrating that Abdollahzadeh had no role in the killing.
According to the official report, Mehrab’s two unnamed co-defendants received custodial sentences after a statutory medical assessment (Article 91 of the Islamic Penal Code) found that they lacked “mental maturity when the crime was committed.”
Mehrab Abdollahzadeh is the 14th protester to be executed in relation to the “Woman, Life, Freedom” nationwide protests. Since 18 March, the Islamic Republic has announced the executions of 21 political prisoners, 11 of whom were protesters. Within that same timeframe, an additional four individuals were executed for alleged espionage for Israel.
Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, May 3-4, 2026
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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