Since the beginning of 2026, the Islamic Republic of Iran has executed at least 916 people, with 67 executions in the month of July and another 8 already recorded in August. This is, however, in all likelihood an underestimate: Tehran does not publish official and systematic data on executions, precisely to evade the scrutiny of international public opinion. Behind these numbers lie individual stories of a cruelty that goes far beyond statistics, helping to reveal how the regime’s repressive machinery truly operates on the ground.
The case of 24-year-old Marzieh Nayeri is perhaps the most emblematic of the human rights violations and extreme consequences suffered by women who fall victim to early and forced marriages within the framework of theocratic judicial systems. Marzieh Nayeri was executed on August 8, 2026, at Qazvin Central Prison (Choubindar) in Iran. She had been sentenced to death on charges of killing her husband, to whom she had been forced to marry when she was still a minor, as a victim of a forced marriage. At the age of 18, she had survived an attempted rape by a business associate of her husband, which took place in her own home and in front of her husband himself; to defend herself, she grabbed a kitchen knife, and in the ensuing struggle, her husband lost his life. Before the court, she recounted that she had already been assaulted multiple times prior to that incident, treated almost like a commodity up for grabs, but the regime refused to recognize self-defense: the man who survived the assault testified against her, labeling her a murderer. The consequence for a life marred by child marriage imposed by Islamic law and ending in a courtroom—in a failed attempt to have her right to defend herself against rape recognized—was the capital sentence, with no mercy. The Iranian court rejected her plea of self-defense, and the victim’s family refused to grant forgiveness (the clemency provided under the qisas system). Her case highlights the double vulnerability of a lot of women in Iran: trapped in arranged marriages at a young age and deprived of effective legal protection or the recognition of gender-based violence when they fight back to save their lives.
If Marzieh’s story shows how Iranian justice treats women who rebel against domestic violence, that of four very young individuals arrested in Isfahan reveals the exact same ruthlessness applied to political dissent. Shervin Bagherian (18), Amirhossein Maleki (19), Ali Dashti (19), and Ghaem Hosseini (20) face imminent execution for participating, on January 8, in a peaceful anti-regime demonstration in Ali-Khani Square, a location tragically notorious for becoming the focal point of a series of capital executions and death sentences issued against protesters detained during the wave of protests. Three of the young men even face double capital sentences, a judicial strategy designed to ensure that the potential overturning of one ruling cannot save their lives. The fact that all four have already been transferred to solitary confinement and that their families have been urgently summoned for a final visit strongly suggests that the authorities view their execution as imminent. On July 28, in Alikhani Square in Isfahan, the Iranian regime executed two young detainees, Abolfazl Sepahi (23) and Amirhossein Safari (29), both imprisoned following the protests that erupted in January 2026. In a gesture of extraordinary rebellion and tenderness, moments before being hanged, Abolfazl Sepahi slipped off his blindfold and, holding his hands together, formed a heart. It was a testament of ultimate courage in the face of death, destined to become an indelible symbol of human dignity against oppression. These young people are merely the most visible tip of a much broader repression unleashed by the protests that swept across the country on January 8, 2026, and met with systematic violence by security forces. In Tehran, in the Ariashahr neighborhood, a 29-year-old man named Farid Ramezani was gunned down with three bullets during that very same night, because in Iran even a simple tattoo is enough to risk your life. The first shot forced him to the ground; the second was deliberately fired into the finger bearing the tattoo of the Pahlavi crown—a symbol of the pre-1979 monarchy and today a tangible sign of opposition to the regime; the third, fatal shot struck him in the forehead. This dramatic sequence leaves no doubt as to the unmistakable contours of a targeted execution, far removed from any tragic accident amid civil unrest.
This chilling testimony exposes the systematic ferocity with which the Iranian regime suppresses dissent, turning any personal detail—even a mark on the skin—into a capital offense. Following the murder, the family was subjected to further harassment. The authorities demanded financial payment for the three bullets used in the execution: a cruel custom documented in authoritarian regimes, where targeted psychological and economic violence is inflicted upon grieving families to compound their loss. Ramezani’s body was withheld for roughly two weeks, and he was denied burial in Tehran. His funeral was likewise subjected to strict restrictions, banning public ceremonies and the display of the Lion and Sun flag. Such measures are designed to prevent gravesites from turning into sites of collective memory or new focal points for protest. Ramezani’s story, much like that of Marzieh Nayeri, demonstrates how every aspect of existence and death under this system is subjected to ironclad control, where dissidence is eradicated with violence and even the mourning of families is criminalized. The province of Ardabil similarly offers a snapshot of a repression that did not end with the conclusion of the protests, but instead morphed into a prolonged judicial limbo: at least 29 people arrested in January remain detained without trial or clarification of their legal status, with families denied regular phone calls and visits, and bail applications systematically rejected or ignored. This is the exact same pattern, applied on a collective scale, seen in the individual ordeal of Mahshad Kashani, a 22-year-old student arrested during the January protests, whose case demonstrates how the Iranian judicial system uses detention itself as an instrument of psychological torture. After serving six months in prison, rather than being released, she was transferred to solitary confinement, where she endured severe psychological pressure and abuse, culminating in a forced transfer to a psychiatric hospital. Barely a month after her release, she was arrested once again during a violent security raid, and she now faces a five-year sentence handed down by a judge of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court and upheld on appeal—a punishment that, given her psychological condition already compromised by prior imprisonment, poses a grave danger to her life. Meanwhile, a new legal case has been opened against her based on a report from the management of the prison where she is held, a mechanism threatening to perpetuate her detention indefinitely. This is not her first time targeted by the judiciary, having previously been arrested in 2023 alongside 22 other students and civil activists. Execution statistics continue to fluctuate within the unofficial reports of human rights organizations. Yet behind those figures lie lives suspended between special tribunals and maximum-security prisons, families forced to pay for the bullets that executed their children, and young people whose only crime was being present. Faced with an uninterrupted chain of executions, isolation, and psychological torture, the machinery of repression in Iran continues to rely on the darkness of international indifference. For ultimately, in the Iran of 2026, the human body has become the final and definitive battlefield: a tattoo on the skin, a desperate defense within domestic walls, an invisible scar left by solitary confinement. Everything is scrutinized, judged, and punished by a theocracy that is not content with governing the living, but presumes to regulate mourning, memory, and death itself.
