Iran | Executions in Qazvin, Ardabil, Dezful

Iranian authorities executed Marzieh Nayeri, a 24-year-old woman who had been forced into marriage as a child, at Qazvin Central Prison, also known as Choubindar Prison. She had been sentenced to death for the murder of her husband.

According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Nayeri was executed at dawn on Aug. 8, 2026, at Qazvin Central Prison.

Sources familiar with the case said that in late September 2021, when Nayeri was 18, a business associate of her husband named Alireza attempted to sexually assault her after consuming alcohol in the presence of her husband. Nayeri injured the man with a kitchen knife while defending herself and subsequently killed her husband. After four days in hiding, she sought refuge with her brother, who later turned her over to police.

Nayeri, who was from a village between Qazvin and Karaj, had been forced by her family to marry a man named Davoud when she was 17. Sources familiar with the case said her husband regularly allowed friends to gather at their home to consume drugs and alcohol and failed to intervene when they harassed or attempted to sexually assault her.

Nayeri was later sentenced to death under Iran’s qisas (retributive justice) laws for the murder of her husband.

Iranian state media and judicial authorities have not publicly announced the execution.

Executions in Ardabil, Dezful

Iranian authorities executed at least three prisoners, including two Turks, Hamed Jahani Kalehsar and Tohid Abdollahi, in Ardabil Central Prison, and a Lor prisoner, Ali Panahinejad, in Dezful Central Prison. All three had previously been sentenced to death under qisas (retribution in kind) for “premeditated murder.”

According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Abdollahi, a father of two daughters, and Jahani Kalehsar, both from Ardabil, were executed in Ardabil Central Prison at dawn on Thursday, August 6, 2026.

Jahani Kalehsar had been arrested four years ago and Abdollahi 11 years ago on charges of “premeditated murder.” Both were subsequently sentenced to death.

Meanwhile, Panahinejad, a 37-year-old Lor from Dezful, was executed in Dezful Central Prison at dawn on Wednesday, August 5. He had been arrested four years earlier on charges of “premeditated murder” and subsequently sentenced to death.

The executions of the three prisoners have not been announced by Iranian official media or judiciary-affiliated outlets.

Source: Hengaw, Staff, August 8-9, 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

Death Penalty News For a World without the Death Penalty

Comments

Doctors warn against Tennessee death penalty protocols

Tennessee’s execution protocol is medically unethical and should be revamped before further executions occur, nearly 40 health care professionals said in a letter to Gov. Bill Lee. Like the coalition of faith leaders who asked for a moratorium on executions earlier this month, the physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals who signed the July 28 letter said they were motivated to speak up after the gruesome and botched execution of Tony Carruthers in May. Carruthers spent 90 minutes bleeding and writhing in agony as an attending physician made repeated unsuccessful attempts to insert an IV into the inmate’s chest after being unable to find useable veins in the arms, legs, and feet. Lee granted Carruthers a one-year reprieve after the ordeal.

After Nearly 30 Years and a Supreme Court Reversal: Assessing the Likely Result of Richard Glossip’s Oklahoma Retrial

DPN asked Grok for a legal analysis of Richard Glossip’s upcoming murder retrial and its likely disposition. Most likely outcome of Richard Glossip’s retrial: acquittal or a hung jury leading to dismissal or no further prosecution, rather than a conviction for first-degree murder. A conviction remains possible but is the less probable result given the severely damaged core evidence and the state’s own prior admissions. Death is off the table. Case background

Arizona prosecutors seek death penalty a second time for 2 inmates

County Attorney Brad Miller said Aug. 6 that the nature of the attack and both men's past criminal records meet the strict legal bar required for execution under Arizona law. FLORENCE, Ariz. - Pinal County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against two inmates accused of violently killing a fellow prisoner behind bars, officials announced Thursday. Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller filed a Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty against Pete Van Winkle and Tracy Hampton in connection with the fatal attack on Kenneth Thompson.

Tennessee | The doctor who helps put prisoners to death

Dr. Mark Fowler assisted in the failed execution of a Tennessee prisoner. Physicians are meant to heal patients—why is he working in the death chamber? Mark Fowler, a physician with 25 years’ experience, stepped beneath the bright lights and approached the middle-aged man lying on a gurney. Around him, people in medical gowns prepared needles and sterile tubing. It had all the appearances of a hospital setting. Fowler had been called in to help establish an IV line through which the 57-year-old man, Tony Carruthers, would be injected with pharmaceutical drugs. The team had struggled to find a vein, so Fowler was summoned to set a central line—an intravenous catheter inserted into the major vein below the collarbone.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

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

Iranian authorities executed 20-year-old protester Arvin Kheirkhah at Shahroud prison on Saturday morning, according to information obtained by Iran International, amid concerns that several other detainees could also face execution. Kheirkhah was arrested during the January protests and sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court on charges including moharebeh , or “waging war against God.” He was transferred to solitary confinement on Wednesday ahead of the execution. His family gathered outside Shahroud prison on Friday night in an attempt to stop the sentence from being carried out. According to information received by Iran International, Kheirkhah told his family in a final conversation: “Don’t let them forget me. We stood up for the liberation of our homeland. Don’t let the path we chose be silenced.”

Florida | Judge refuses to let convicted serial killer speak as she sentences him to death

A Florida judge denied a request from a convicted serial killer to speak in court as she sentenced him to death on Tuesday. A jury convicted Demorris Hunter, 60, of 1st-degree murder and theft in the death of Theresa Ann Green, 38, who was strangled and left in the trunk of her car. “Demorris Andy Hunter, you have not only forfeited your right to dwell among us as a free man, but by your actions and under the law of the State of Florida, you have forfeited your right to live, as well,” Judge Lisa Munyon said as she handed down the sentence Tuesday morning.

Death row inmate sues Tennessee, claiming state denied private confession before execution

A Tennessee death row inmate and his chosen spiritual advisor have filed a federal lawsuit against the Tennessee Department of Correction, alleging state prison policies violate their religious rights by preventing a private confession before execution. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, does not challenge Tennessee’s authority to carry out executions. Instead, it asks whether condemned inmates have a constitutional and federally protected right to privately practice their faith before the state carries out a death sentence. John Michael Bane has spent decades on Tennessee’s death row after a Shelby County jury convicted him of 1st-degree felony murder in the 1988 robbery and killing of 60-year-old Royce Frazier.

Idaho | How Bryan Kohberger’s Guilty Plea Move Could Be His Death Sentence

If Bryan Kohberger successfully withdraws his guilty plea and goes to trial for the murders of four University of Idaho students, it could lead to him being sentenced to death, experts told Newsweek . Kohberger, 31, filed a handwritten petition on Monday from the Idaho Maximum Security Penitentiary, where he is serving four consecutive life sentences for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen in a rental home near the university's campus in Moscow, Idaho, in 2022. Kohberger pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbings just over a year ago, a month before jury selection was set to start.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog