Iran Plans Execution of First Female Protester Linked to Anti-Regime Demonstrations

The Case Against Bita Hemmati

A Tehran Revolutionary Court has sentenced 31-year-old Bita Hemmati to death, positioning her to become the first woman executed in connection with the January 2026 uprising that has engulfed Iran since late December 2025 [1][2]. Hemmati, her 34-year-old husband Mohammadreza Majidi-Asl, and two co-defendants — Behrouz Zamaninejad and Kourosh Zamaninejad, who shared the couple's apartment — were convicted under a set of charges the judiciary listed as "using explosives and weapons," "harming stationed forces on-site," "throwing incendiary materials," and "disrupting national security" [1][3]. Court documents reviewed by the National Council of Resistance of Iran allege the defendants threw concrete blocks and stones from a residential building onto security forces during the Tehran demonstrations [1][3].

The court, Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, was presided over by Judge Iman Afshari — a jurist whom Iran-focused human rights monitors describe as a "death judge" with an extensive record of fast-tracking heavy sentences against political and security defendants [3][4]. Alongside the death sentences, the court ordered confiscation of the defendants' property and ruled that their actions had been carried out "on behalf of the United States," a finding that carries the specific statutory weight of enmity with God [1][3].

Iranian authorities have not publicly scheduled the hanging, and the sentences remain subject to Supreme Court review [2][5]. The Center for Human Rights in Iran and Amnesty International have both called the proceedings "grossly unfair" and accused the court of relying on torture-tainted confessions, closed hearings, and indictments that do not individuate conduct among the four defendants [2][6].

What "Moharebeh" and "Baghi" Mean in Iranian Law

Iranian capital statutes lean heavily on two elastic categories that prosecutors have applied to post-2022 protest defendants: moharebeh ("enmity against God," broadly defined as taking up arms to spread fear among the public) and efsad-fil-arz ("corruption on earth") [6][7]. A third charge, baghi — armed rebellion against the Islamic system — has increasingly appeared in protest indictments, including the October 2025 case of Zahra Tabari, whose Revolutionary Court trial in Rasht lasted less than 10 minutes over video conference and hinged on a piece of cloth carrying the slogan "Woman, Resistance, Freedom" and an unpublished audio recording [8][9].

UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran Mai Sato has reported that these statutes are routinely applied without the evidentiary threshold that Iranian law itself demands for capital conviction [10]. The Islamic Penal Code requires moharebeh to involve armed conduct intended to spread public fear, but Revolutionary Courts have used the charge against defendants accused only of protest attendance, social media posts, or — in Tabari's case — possession of a banned slogan [6][9]. Amnesty International documented the June 2025 execution of Mojahed Kourkouri, a "Woman, Life, Freedom" protester hanged after what the organization called a "sham trial" built on forced confessions extracted through torture [6].

The Scale of Iran's Execution System

Iran executed at least 1,639 people in 2025, a 68% jump from the 975 hangings recorded in 2024 and the highest annual total since 1989, according to the joint annual report compiled by Iran Human Rights (IHR) and the Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) [11][12]. The 2025 figure works out to an average of more than four executions per day — a rate IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam says represents an "absolute minimum," because Iranian authorities publicly acknowledge only about seven percent of executions, with most confirmations coming from family members or prison sources [10][11].

Source: Iran Human Rights & ECPM

Data as of Apr 13, 2026CSV

The gender composition of the death row population has shifted sharply. At least 48 women were executed in 2025, a 55% increase over 2024 and the highest figure recorded in more than two decades [12][13]. Most of those women were convicted of murder charges typically tied to domestic violence cases, rather than political offenses — which is why Hemmati's case is a marker: she would be the first woman put to death specifically for protest-related conduct since the January uprising, and potentially the first since the post-2022 crackdown began [1][14].

Source: Iran Human Rights

Data as of Apr 13, 2026CSV

Beyond Hemmati's group, at least 26 other people arrested during the January 2026 protests have received death sentences, with "several hundred more" facing charges that could produce capital verdicts, according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran [2][5]. Twelve "Woman, Life, Freedom" protesters from the 2022 cycle had already been executed before the January uprising began, including Mehran Bahramian, hanged in Isfahan Central Prison on September 6, 2025, on a moharebeh charge tied to allegations he used a Kalashnikov during demonstrations [15].

Historical Precedent: 1988, 2019, and 2022

The current wave sits inside a longer pattern of mass political killings, but the numbers differ by orders of magnitude across episodes.

Source: Amnesty International, Iran Human Rights, Reuters

Data as of Apr 13, 2026CSV

The 1988 executions of political prisoners remain the largest single episode. Following a fatwa issued by Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, three-member "Death Commissions" across at least 32 Iranian cities sent thousands of detainees — many imprisoned for nonviolent activities such as distributing leaflets or attending protests — to hanging or firing squad over roughly five months [16][17]. Amnesty International's 2018 "Blood-Soaked Secrets" report documented approximately 5,000 killings; the late Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, who opposed the executions internally, cited estimates between 2,800 and 3,800; the People's Mojahedin-linked Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Massacre puts the figure above 30,000 [16][17]. In a July 2024 report, then-UN Special Rapporteur Javaid Rehman characterized the killings as genocide and crimes against humanity [17].

The November 2019 "Bloody November" crackdown on protests against a fuel-price hike followed a different pattern: live ammunition used against demonstrators in streets, rather than mass executions of detainees. Amnesty verified 323 killings across those days [18]; Reuters, citing three unnamed Interior Ministry officials, reported roughly 1,500 dead, including about 17 teenagers and 400 women [19]; and a later Iran Human Rights report placed the toll at 3,000 [18]. Amnesty's research drew heavily on evidence gathered during a near-total internet shutdown that the Iranian government used to suppress real-time reporting [18].

The 2022 "Woman, Life, Freedom" uprising, triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini in morality-police custody, produced at least 551 protest-related deaths documented by Human Rights Activists News Agency and more than 22,000 arrests [20]. Ten protesters were executed in 2022–2023, with the pace accelerating in 2024 and 2025 [14][15].

The January 2026 uprising, which began in Tehran's Grand Bazaar on December 28, 2025 after the rial collapsed to roughly 1.4 million per U.S. dollar and year-on-year consumer price inflation reached 52%, has already surpassed several of those earlier episodes in geographic spread [20][21]. Demonstrations reached more than 200 cities, and Iranian security forces — reportedly operating under orders from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to use live fire — killed at least 1,000 people, by the low estimate of Amnesty International, with independent researchers suggesting the true toll is significantly higher [20][22].

Due Process and the Trial Record

Human rights monitors have identified specific procedural violations in Hemmati's case that mirror patterns documented by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Amnesty International across the broader post-uprising caseload [2][6]. The Center for Human Rights in Iran stated that the indictment against Hemmati and her co-defendants "fails to provide any individual differentiation regarding the charges, uniformly condemning the group without establishing specific, factual evidence for each person's actions" [2]. That pattern — charging co-habitants collectively for alleged conduct during a protest — has appeared in other January uprising cases reviewed by the New York-based monitor [2][5].

Iran's Revolutionary Court system operates outside the ordinary judiciary. Defendants are frequently held in pretrial solitary confinement, denied access to independent lawyers under a note to Article 48 of the Criminal Procedure Code that requires defense counsel in security cases to be chosen from a judiciary-approved list, and tried in closed sessions [4][7]. The U.S. State Department's 2024 human rights report and the UN Human Rights Council's 2026 resolution extending the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran both concluded that confessions extracted through physical and psychological torture are routinely admitted as evidence [7][22].

In October 2025, UN Special Rapporteur Sato issued a formal warning that Iran's post-June 2025 repression — which followed a 12-day war with Israel — had reached a scale warranting global emergency intervention [10]. In March 2026, the Human Rights Council renewed her mandate and called for an urgent investigation into violations linked to the protests [22].

The Government's Case

Iranian officials maintain that the defendants crossed the line from protest into violent insurrection. Judiciary spokespeople have argued that throwing concrete blocks and stones from a rooftop onto security personnel constitutes armed attack under the moharebeh statute, regardless of whether firearms were used, and that disrupting public order during a state-declared security emergency is a capital offense under long-standing Iranian law [1][3]. The Tehran prosecutor's office has also cast the case in geopolitical terms, arguing the defendants acted on behalf of a foreign power — the United States — and that leniency would signal weakness during what Supreme Leader Khamenei has framed as a foreign-backed destabilization campaign [3][23].

At the UN Human Rights Council, Iran's delegation has argued that sponsors of critical resolutions "had never genuinely cared for the human rights of Iranians, otherwise, they would not have imposed sanctions which impacted the lives of Iranians" [22]. Tehran has consistently rejected the jurisdiction of UN fact-finding bodies and refused to cooperate with the Special Rapporteur [10][22].

The trial record publicly available through state media does not, however, include independent forensic evidence tying Hemmati individually to the conduct alleged, contemporaneous video of the specific acts charged, or independent witness testimony — the elements that the Islamic Penal Code itself requires for moharebeh conviction [2][6]. The bulk of the prosecution's case, according to documentation reviewed by the Center for Human Rights in Iran and the NCRI, consists of statements obtained during interrogation and the collective occupancy of the building from which objects were allegedly thrown [1][2].

The International Response

Foreign governments and multilateral bodies have deployed a mixture of sanctions, resolutions, and public condemnation since the January uprising began, though none has attempted broader measures such as severing diplomatic relations or triggering treaty dispute mechanisms [22][24].

The United Kingdom in February 2026 sanctioned ten Iranian officials, including senior police commanders and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members, for their role in suppressing protests [22]. Australia the same month imposed targeted measures on 20 Iranian individuals and three organizations, citing the "horrific use of violence" [22]. The European Union has added names to its Iran human rights sanctions list but has stopped short of the proscription of the IRGC sought by European Parliament resolutions [24]. The United States, under reimposed "maximum pressure" secondary sanctions, has issued statements but has limited additional designations because of existing penalty stacks on the Iranian economy [21][24].

The UN Human Rights Council in March 2026 adopted a resolution extending the mandate of both the Special Rapporteur and the Fact-Finding Mission and calling for an urgent investigation into violations linked to the protests beginning December 28, 2025 [22]. China and Russia voted against; most Western and Latin American states voted in favor [22].

Corporate and trade relationships remain, especially in oil and petrochemicals. China has remained the largest buyer of sanctioned Iranian crude, and several European firms continue to operate under humanitarian carve-outs for pharmaceuticals and food [21][24]. Analysts at the Stimson Center note that the economic leverage foreign governments hold — further sanctions on an already-sanctioned economy — is relatively narrow, while the diplomatic tools (condemnation, UN mechanisms, proscription of state entities) are blunt and slow [21].

Precedent for Reversal

Recent history suggests international pressure can produce outcomes in individual cases, though rarely systemic change. Dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi, originally sentenced to death in April 2024 on moharebeh-related charges tied to lyrics in support of the 2022 protests, had his sentence overturned by Iran's Supreme Court on June 22, 2024, after sustained international advocacy campaigns and statements from foreign governments [25][26]. The court found earlier punishments "in excess of legal punishment," and Salehi was released in December 2024 after completing a reduced prison term [25][27].

The Toomaj outcome is the exception rather than the pattern. The 12 executed "Woman, Life, Freedom" protesters received international attention before their hangings without securing a reprieve, and monitors note that cases attracting high-profile foreign pressure sometimes face accelerated execution timelines rather than reversals [6][15]. Supreme Court review of Hemmati's sentence typically takes weeks to months, but authorities have in past cases — including the three protesters publicly hanged in March 2026 — carried out executions within days of final confirmation and without advance notice to families or lawyers [5].

Effects Inside and Outside Iran

The threat of capital punishment has produced measurable changes in behavior inside Iran's protest networks, according to interviews compiled by the Berkeley Human Rights Center's investigation into violence against "Woman, Life, Freedom" protesters [28]. Documented accounts describe detainees avoiding contact with family to prevent collective charges of the kind filed against Hemmati's household, reduced public organizing in favor of encrypted, cell-based coordination, and increased reliance on diaspora-based amplification of evidence [28]. Nasrin Sotoudeh, the prominent human rights lawyer and Sakharov Prize laureate, was herself arrested at her Tehran home on April 1, 2026, and remains held incommunicado — a detention 30 international legal organizations have characterized as part of a sustained campaign against independent legal advocacy [29].

Exile networks have absorbed larger organizational roles as a result. Women, Life, Freedom committees in Europe and North America have coordinated with the UN Fact-Finding Mission and functioned as evidence aggregators for identification of individual officers and judges [28][22]. Judge Afshari's name, along with other "death judges," now appears on sanctions designation lists circulated to Western governments by advocacy organizations [4][22].

Polling inside Iran is unreliable under current conditions, but the scale and geographic spread of the January uprising — which reached more than 200 cities and drew both bazaari merchants and university students into coordinated action — suggests that the deterrent effect of the execution campaign has not extinguished willingness to demonstrate, at least at the onset of a mobilization [20][21]. What the execution threat appears to shape more clearly is the tactical profile of protest and the willingness of detainees to cooperate with lawyers and families once arrested [2][28].

What the Timeline Looks Like

Under Iranian law, death sentences from a Revolutionary Court must be reviewed by the Supreme Court before execution, though in practice that review can be rapid and opaque [5][7]. Monitors warn that the specific procedural window in Hemmati's case is unclear: public court records do not indicate whether the Supreme Court has received the file, and Iranian authorities are not required to notify defense counsel before scheduling a hanging [2][5].

Historical precedent suggests three narrow routes by which the sentence could be halted: Supreme Court reversal on legal grounds, as in the Toomaj case, typically following either procedural defects or sustained advocacy; a pardon from the Supreme Leader, which has been granted occasionally but rarely in political cases; or a consolidated foreign pressure campaign tied to a specific diplomatic concession Tehran values, of the kind that has historically influenced dual-national prisoner releases but not protester executions [21][25]. Whether any of these converge before Hemmati's sentence is carried out will depend on factors that are not public and may be decided in days rather than weeks.

Limits of the Public Record

Several important questions cannot be answered from currently available sources. The full trial transcript of Hemmati's proceeding has not been released. Independent forensic evidence, if any was presented, is not in the public record. The conditions of Hemmati's pretrial detention, the identity of any lawyer who represented her, and the content of statements she is alleged to have made during interrogation are known only through second-hand accounts relayed by family and human rights monitors. Iranian state media has published only the charges and the sentence, not the evidentiary basis. The accounts summarized in this piece rely on reporting from the Center for Human Rights in Iran, Amnesty International, the NCRI, and the UN Special Rapporteur's office — organizations whose access is also constrained, though they have extensive networks of sources inside Iranian prisons and exile communities.