An Iranian blogger held since the spring has been sentenced to death by a revolutionary court in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, according to four separate human rights monitors, in a case built largely around a single photograph she is alleged to have taken of a missile impact site.
Iran International, which first reported the sentence, said Branch 3 of the Bandar Abbas Revolutionary Court handed down the ruling and that her lawyer was notified on 23 August. Alongside the death sentence, the court imposed between two and five years' imprisonment, confiscation of her property and a bar from public service. Iran International also reported that she was held in solitary confinement for 20 days and subjected to severe pressure during interrogation, with her family unaware of her whereabouts during that period.
The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, reporting the same ruling, said security agencies cited as key evidence a photograph she allegedly took from a distance of a site struck by a missile and sent to Persian-language outlets abroad. Hengaw placed her arrest in April 2026, during the 40-day war; Iran International dates her detention to March.
Accounts diverge on several procedural points. Iran HRM, which issued an urgent appeal on 15 September, gives the sentencing date as 18 August and attributes the ruling to Branch 1 under Judge Hajizadeh, where the Iran Observatory monitoring account names Judge Khajeh-Hassani in Branch 3. Iran HRM further specifies the espionage charge as intelligence activity on behalf of Israel and the United States during wartime, and states the sentence is death by hanging. Her age is given as 32 by HRANA and Hengaw and as 33 by Iran International.
HRANA reported that Ebrahimi Shamsabadi has suffered from multiple sclerosis for roughly six years and has additional medical conditions, and that a source familiar with her situation described her physical condition in Bandar Abbas Prison as poor. Iran HRM lists ulcerative colitis among her illnesses and says the sentence was issued despite her need for continuous medical care.
The Iran HRM appeal pairs her case with that of Arghavan Fallahi, a political prisoner born in 2001 sentenced to death for baghi, or armed rebellion, by the Tehran Revolutionary Court. That sentence has been upheld by the Supreme Court and her request for judicial review rejected, the organisation said, despite no weapons having been seized.
Ebrahimi Shamsabadi posted what proved to be her final message to roughly 10,000 Instagram followers on 23 February. "If one day I leave this world, just know one thing, I chose the path I believed in," she wrote.
The Iranian judiciary has not commented on the case. No filing of an appeal to the Supreme Court has been reported.