The case of Afsaneh Rahimi, a woman reported by rights monitors to have been detained in connection with the wave of anti-government protests that swept Iran in late December 2025 and January 2026, reflects a broader and documented pattern: women swept up in mass arrests, held incommunicado, subjected to what rights groups describe as torture-extracted confessions, and facing accelerated trials before Revolutionary Courts. Her case — like those of thousands of others detained since the uprising — has not been officially acknowledged by Iranian authorities, a deliberate opacity that human rights organizations say is itself a tool of terror.
The scale of what is unfolding is staggering. According to a joint annual report by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), at least 1,639 people were executed in Iran in 2025 alone — the highest number recorded since 1989, representing a 68 percent increase over the 975 executions carried out in 2024. At least 48 women were among those hanged, the highest figure in more than two decades. Rights groups note that the true number is likely far higher; Iranian official media announced fewer than seven percent of the executions.
The pace has not slowed with the outbreak of war. In February 2026 alone — the month the United States and Israel launched military strikes on Iran — at least 307 people were executed across 31 provinces and 65 cities, according to Iran HRM. The months of October, November, and December 2025 had already seen 279, 336, and 376 recorded executions respectively, setting what human rights monitors called an unprecedented modern record.
The political dimension of the killings has sharpened dramatically since the January 2026 uprisings — the largest protests in Iran since the 1979 revolution, with an estimated five million people taking to the streets. On March 19, 2026, three men — Saleh Mohammadi, 19, Saeed Davoudi, 21, and Mehdi Ghasemi — were publicly hanged in the city of Qom, marking the first executions directly linked to the protest crackdown. Mohammadi, a champion teenage wrestler, had been arrested on January 15, sentenced to death on February 4 — less than three weeks later — and executed the following month. Amnesty International reviewed his court verdict and found that he had retracted his confessions in court, stating they were extracted under torture. The court dismissed the claim without investigation.
The executions did not stop there. On March 30 and 31, four more political prisoners — Akbar Daneshvarkar, Mohammad Taghavi Sangdehi, Babak Alipour, and Pouya Ghobadi — were hanged at Ghezel Hesar Prison after being secretly transferred the night before without notice to their families or lawyers. On April 2, 18-year-old Amirhossein Hatami was executed. On April 4, Abolhassan Montazer, Vahid Bani-Amerian, and Ali Fahim were put to death. Six of those executed in late March and early April were members of the banned People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The Iranian judiciary charged them with 'moharebeh' — waging war against God — and alleged espionage links to Israel, charges that rights groups and the PMOI's political wing, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), described as fabricated.
On April 14, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that four more protesters had been sentenced to death by a Tehran Revolutionary Court, convicted of 'cooperating' with the United States and 'hostile groups.' One of them is a woman — Bita Hemmati — believed to be the first woman sentenced to death in connection with the January uprising. She and her husband, Mohammadreza Majidi Asl, were arrested as a married couple in Tehran. Rights groups noted that the court was presided over by Judge Imam Afshari, who has been linked to numerous politically motivated death sentences.
All of this is unfolding against the backdrop of an extraordinary geopolitical moment. On April 7, Iran and the United States announced a temporary two-week ceasefire following the military conflict that began on February 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites. High-level talks led by U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance took place in Islamabad on April 12, with Pakistani officials serving as mediators. The talks ran through the night but produced no agreement, with Vance stating afterward that Iran 'didn't move far enough.' As of this writing, Pakistani, Egyptian, and Turkish mediators are working to bridge gaps before the ceasefire expires on April 21.
Human rights organizations and UN experts have urged Western governments to place the execution crisis at the center of any diplomatic engagement with Tehran. 'The message they send by executing people every day is to say we have the power to kill,' said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Iran Human Rights. His organization and ECPM have called on the international community to make the abolition of capital punishment a core condition of any agreement with Iran. The UN Fact-Finding Mission stated in March that repression in Iran had 'reached unprecedented levels, which may amount to crimes against humanity.'
Inside Iran's prisons, a remarkable act of resistance continues. Since 2022, inmates in dozens of prisons have held weekly hunger strikes every Tuesday as part of the 'No to Executions Tuesdays' campaign. On April 14, 2026, the campaign entered its 116th consecutive week, with participation reported in at least 56 prisons nationwide — all under a near-total internet blackout that has prevented families, lawyers, and the outside world from tracking what is happening inside detention facilities holding tens of thousands of protesters.
Human rights monitors warn that the worst may be yet to come. Death sentences have been issued against at least 26 people arrested during the January protests, with 'several hundred more' facing charges that could result in execution, according to IHR. The internet shutdown has made it impossible to fully track sentences handed to the estimated 50,000 protesters detained since December 2025. 'This list is undoubtedly only the tip of the iceberg,' Iran HRM said of its own documented figures. As negotiators work to shape the future of Iran's nuclear program, those numbers are climbing.
Illustration: Perplexity