The verdict is decided in the detention cell, not the courtroom.
Three men are now dead. Iran's judiciary confirmed on Sunday that Mohammadamin Biglari and Shahin Vahedparast were executed after being convicted of attempting to storm a military facility and break into an armoury during the unrest that swept the country in January. Their deaths came just days after 18-year-old Amirhossein Hatami was put to death in the same case — a teenager whose name has become a focal point for rights organizations watching the proceedings with mounting alarm.
The January protests were part of a broader wave of anti-government demonstrations that the Islamic Republic moved to suppress in what observers have described as the most sweeping crackdown in the country's modern history. The state's response — mass arrests, closed trials, and now a string of executions — has drawn sustained international condemnation, though the government has shown little sign of moderating its approach.
Iran's Supreme Court upheld the sentences for Biglari and Vahedparast, with the judiciary's Mizan news outlet framing the men as rioters who had sought to commit mass murder by attempting to seize weapons and military equipment. That framing — casting protesters as would-be mass killers — reflects the government's consistent effort to characterize the demonstrations not as political dissent but as armed insurrection.
Amnesty International, which had been tracking the case, identified Biglari and Vahedparast as two of four defendants in the same proceeding who faced execution. The organization has painted a stark picture of how these cases were built: men held in detention were subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment, then brought before courts in proceedings Amnesty described as grossly unfair, with convictions resting heavily on confessions the group says were extracted by force.
The executions do not appear to be the end of it. Amnesty reported that eleven men remain at immediate risk of execution for their roles in the January protests. That number — eleven people whose fates are still unresolved — gives the story its particular weight. Each name on that list represents a case still moving through a system that has already demonstrated its willingness to carry sentences out.
The pattern here is not new to Iran's post-protest playbook. After the 2022 uprising that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody, the government executed several men convicted of protest-related charges, drawing similar condemnation from human rights bodies and foreign governments. The executions proceeded anyway. The January 2025 unrest appears to be following the same trajectory.
What distinguishes this moment is the speed and the youth of those targeted. Hatami was eighteen. The cases have moved through the courts and into execution chambers within months of the protests themselves. Rights groups have struggled to intervene in time — the gap between a death sentence being upheld and carried out has, in several of these cases, been narrow enough to foreclose meaningful legal or diplomatic response.
With eleven men still facing imminent execution, the coming days and weeks will determine whether the pattern holds or whether any external pressure manages to slow it. So far, the evidence suggests the Islamic Republic intends to see this through.
Notable Quotes
The defendants were among rioters who sought to commit mass murder by attempting to steal weapons and military equipment.— Mizan, Iran's judiciary news outlet
The men were subjected to torture and ill-treatment in detention, then convicted in grossly unfair trials that relied on forced confessions.— Amnesty International
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does the government keep calling these men rioters who wanted to commit mass murder? That framing seems extreme.
It's deliberate. If you frame protesters as would-be mass killers, you transform a political problem into a security one. That makes execution feel like self-defense rather than repression.
And the confessions — how central are they to these convictions?
Apparently central enough that Amnesty specifically called them out. When a system relies on forced confessions, the trial becomes a formality. The verdict is decided in the detention cell, not the courtroom.
Hatami was eighteen. Does his age change anything legally under Iranian law?
Iran has executed juvenile offenders before, despite international prohibitions. His age makes the case more visible internationally, but it hasn't functioned as a legal shield.
Eleven men still face imminent execution. What does imminent actually mean in this context?
It means the Supreme Court has upheld their sentences and no legal mechanism remains to delay them. Days, sometimes hours. Amnesty has watched cases move from confirmation to execution faster than appeals can be filed.
Is there any historical precedent for this kind of post-protest execution campaign in Iran?
The 2022 Mahsa Amini protests ended the same way — executions carried out despite international outcry. The government treated condemnation as noise and proceeded. This looks like the same calculation.
What would it take to stop the remaining eleven executions?
Realistically? Either internal political pressure the government has shown no sign of responding to, or a diplomatic intervention it has no incentive to accept. The window is narrow and closing.