Iran | Four executed in multiple prisons

At least four prisoners, Ali Rasouli, Eshaq Marrei, Shamseddin Afshari, and Faraj Yahyaei, were executed in recent days in Hamadan Central Prison, Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad, and Zanjan Central Prison on separate convictions related to "premeditated murder," drug-related offenses, and rape. The execution of the Baloch prisoner in Mashhad was carried out in secret.

According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Ali Rasouli, from Hamadan, was executed at dawn on Tuesday, July 28, 2026, at Hamadan Central Prison. He had previously been convicted of "premeditated murder" and sentenced to death by the Iranian judiciary.

Authorities also secretly executed Eshaq Marrei, a Baloch prisoner from Sarakhs County in Razavi Khorasan Province, at dawn on Monday, July 27, 2026, at Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad.

Sources familiar with the case said Marrei was married, the father of five children, and lived in the village of Sangar in Sarakhs County. He was arrested in 2020 while working as a truck driver on the Birjand route on drug-related charges and was later sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court.

His execution was carried out without prior notice to his family, and his body was returned to them on Tuesday, July 28, 2026.

Authorities also executed two Turkish prisoners, Shamseddin Afshari, 51, and Faraj Yahyaei, 28, at dawn on Sunday, July 26, 2026, at Zanjan Central Prison.

Afshari, a 51-year-old father of four from Zanjan who worked as a pickup truck driver, was arrested on October 15, 2024, after fatally injuring a thief during an attempted vehicle robbery in Abhar County. His death sentence under qisas (retribution in kind) was carried out after he was unable to pay the 10 billion tomans (US$52,493) in blood money demanded by the victim's family.

Yahyaei, 28, was from Khorramdarreh and worked at a fruit shop in Zanjan. He had been imprisoned for the past two years after being convicted of rape and sentenced to death.

Iranian state media and judiciary-affiliated outlets had not announced the executions of the four prisoners.

Source: Hengaw, Staff, July 29, 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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