Iran Executes Two More Protest Leaders As Regime’s Killing Machine Grinds On

Iran executed two men Tuesday identified as leaders of the early 2026 anti-government unrest, the latest deaths in a sweeping campaign of state killings that belies any notion the Islamic Republic has moderated its repression of dissent.

The judiciary’s news outlet Mizan reported that Javad Zamani and Abolfazl Saedi were put to death in Shahrud County after being convicted of “moharebeh” — waging war against God — along with corruption on earth, damaging public and private property, and crimes against national security. The head of the judiciary in Semnan province said the two had used weapons and acted against “public order and security” during what authorities labeled the “armed unrest” of early 2026.

The executions drew immediate condemnation from human rights observers who noted the charges are the same religious and security statutes the regime has long deployed to criminalize protest and silence opposition. The convictions rely on charges rooted in Islamic penal law — a framework critics say is routinely weaponized to justify executions of political opponents while insulating the regime from accountability.

Tuesday’s hangings are far from isolated. According to a report from the Center for Human Rights in Iran at the end of April, at least 22 political prisoners were executed between March 17 and April 27 alone — roughly one every two days — the majority following proceedings marked by torture, forced confessions, and the complete exclusion of independent lawyers. Ten of those executed had been arrested during the January 2026 nationwide protests.

The scale of the crackdown has prompted comparisons to the Islamic Republic’s bloodiest period. “The use of the death penalty as a political tool on this scale has not been seen since the 1980s in Iran,” said Esfandiar Aban, director of research at the Center for Human Rights in Iran.

Among those reportedly awaiting execution are a 45-year-old mother of two, a 50-year-old carpenter who wept during his televised trial, a young man sentenced to death reportedly for a private phone conversation containing an alleged insult to a religious figure, and at least three teenagers — two of them 17 years old — whose death sentences have reportedly been upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court in apparent violation of international law.

The executions continue as some Western governments have explored diplomatic re-engagement with Tehran, operating on assumptions that the regime may have evolved. Rights advocates argue the evidence points in the opposite direction. Since Iran launched military operations on February 28, at least 4,000 additional arrests have been recorded, lawyers have been systematically blocked from representing defendants, and death sentences have in some cases been carried out before appeals could even be filed.

“Young people who took to the streets to demand their freedom are now being marched to the gallows,” Aban said. “This is retaliatory state violence, carried out methodically, one life at a time, in the hope that the world is too distracted to act.”