Iran

Dozens Under Sentence of Death for Participation in Protests and Dissent as Executions Soared in 2025

At least 78 people in Iran are at risk of being executed for participation in protests or alleged involvement in anti-government activities. Since Israel and the U.S. initiated military strikes on Iran at the end of February 2026, Iranian authorities have arbitrarily executed at least 41 individuals sentenced to death after being convicted of politically-motivated charges following grossly unfair trials. Many of these have been subjected to torture in order to extract coerced confessions. Please take this action to call on the Iranian authorities to halt all planned executions, void all death sentences and establish an official moratorium on all executions with a view to fully abolishing the death penalty. Amnesty International recorded at least 2,159 executions in Iran in 2025, more than double the number of executions recorded for 2024. Iranian authorities are using the cover of what they call “wartime conditions” to intensify their repression of dissent through mass arbitrary arrests, accelerated grossly unfair judicial proceedings, politically motivated executions, harsh prison sentences, and asset confiscations.

Human Rights Defender and Prisoner of Conscience Narges Mohammadi Released on Medical Parole After International Outcry

Narges Mohammadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023, has been repeatedly imprisoned in Iran for her tireless human rights advocacy. She was violently arrested in December 2025 and severely beaten. She suffered a heart attack and other serious medical problems while in detention. Amnesty International issued an urgent action on May 1 calling for her release. After a large number of activists contacted Iranian authorities, she was released on May 10 for one month to receive specialized treatment. Amnesty International continues to call for her release to be unconditional, and for all her conviction and prison sentences to be voided.

Trapped Between Unlawful Attacks by the USA/Israel and Internal Deadly Repression: People in Iran Face Dual Atrocity Risks

On the one hand, civilians have suffered grave harm amid relentless US and Israeli air strikes which have killed at least 2,362 civilians, including at least 383 children. On the other hand, people in Iran have been subjected to decades of brutal repression by the authorities of the Islamic Republic with impunity and are at further risk of atrocity crimes. Thousands of people were killed by Iranian government agents during protests in January 2026, executions have skyrocketed, and thousands of people have been arrested for peaceful dissent or participation in protests. In an April 2026 report, Amnesty International notes that cycles of protest bloodshed and escalating risks of further massacres targeting those demanding fundamental political change are rooted in Iran’s constitutional structure that entrenches impunity and enables widespread crimes under international law and discrimination on the grounds of sex, religion and political affiliation, and denies people their rights including to participate in public affairs and to freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly. For these reasons, Iranian civil society actors have long called for a new, rights-respecting constitution and for international support to create the enabling conditions for civil society to pursue a transformative constitution-making process.

Civilians and Prisoners Must be Protected During Military Strikes on Iran

Ongoing US and Israeli air strikes near prisons, as well as the targeting of security facilities where detainees are held, are placing prisoners, including children, at risk. Iranian authorities’ refusal to release all those arbitrarily detained and grant humanitarian release to others imprisoned is knowingly placing those prisoners at risk of death or serious harm. Please take this action calling on the Iranian authorities to ensure that prisoners under their control are not put in danger during military actions. On March 3, 2026 Amnesty International issued a press release calling on all parties to protect civilians, adhere to international humanitarian law, in particular by ending unlawful attacks, such as deliberate, indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks on civilians and civilians infrastructures. A U.S. military strike against an elementary school in Minab on February 28, 2026 killed 168 people, including more than 100 children. Amnesty International is calling for those responsible for this military strike to be held accountable.

In April 2026 U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Iran, saying that “a whole civilization will die tonight [April 7], never to be brought back again.” In response, Amnesty International issued a statement that included the following: “International humanitarian law strictly prohibits direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects. The US President’s threat of extermination and irreparable destruction brazenly shreds core rules of international humanitarian law, with potentially catastrophic consequences for over 90 million people.  It may constitute a threat to commit genocide, a crime defined by the Genocide Convention and by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court”

Deadly crackdown on protesters across the country

Amnesty International issued a press release detailing the Iranian authorities’ violent response to protests that broke out across the entire country at the end of December 2025 after the devaluation of Iran’s currency. The Iranian authorities have deliberately turned to mass killings of protesters. At least 2,000 people, including children, have been killed by security agents, with much of the violence occurring in areas predominantly inhabited by Iran’s ethnic minorities. Amnesty International has verified videos recording distraught relatives searching for their loved ones among hundreds of body bags.  Government agents also carried out a violent raid at a hospital in Ilam where injured protesters were being treated, and have arrested thousands of protesters, subjecting them to torture and sexual violence in detention. The Iranian government has, moreover, imposed an Internet and communications blackout in an effort to prevent their massive human rights violations from being publicized.

Amnesty International calls on the Iranian authorities to immediately restore internet access; release all those arbitrarily detained; disclose the fate and whereabouts of all those subjected to enforced disappearance; protect all detainees from torture and other ill-treatment; and grant detainees access to their lawyers, families and any medical care they require. Authorities must also stop the intimidation and harassment of victims’ families.

Tell the authorities to immediately release those detained solely for exercising their human rights!

Activists are urged to take this action calling on the authorities to immediately release all those detained solely for exercising their human rights including the right of peaceful assembly; to protect from torture and other ill-treatment all those who have been detained; to disclose the fate and whereabouts of all individuals forcibly disappeared; to grant access to their lawyers, families and any medical care they require; to immediately quash all convictions and death sentences, to refrain from seeking further death sentences and to ensure that anyone charged with a recognizable criminal offence is tried in proceedings meeting international fair trial standards without recourse to the death penalty.

Amnesty International joined a number of other organizations to issue a joint letter calling on members of the UN Human Rights Council to urgently convene a special session to address an unprecedented escalation in mass unlawful killings of protesters, amidst an ongoing internet shutdown imposed since 8 January to conceal grave human rights violations and crimes under international law by Iranian authorities. The special session was held on January 23, 2026, with the Iranian government insisting that the protests were orchestrated by foreign agents intending to undermine Iran’s national security. The special session resulted in the passage of a resolution calling for the extension of the mandates of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran and of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission. This current harsh crackdown echoes the government’s long-established pattern of repressing the Iranian population’s right to freedom of speech and assembly, as Iran’s Supreme Leader and other high officials stated that rioters should be put in their place and dealt with by harsh measures. 

Nowruz Action

The Persian holiday Nowruz (“new day”) is an ancient holiday celebrated on the first day of spring to welcome in the new year. Every Nowruz we remember several courageous prisoners of conscience in Iran with Nowruz greetings. We ask activists to send cards with Nowruz greetings to let our imprisoned friends and their families know we are thinking of them at this time. Please also take pictures of you and your group doing the Nowruz action and post it to your social media. There are also instructions in the Nowruz action for sending pictures to AIUSA so we can create a poster with a collage of photos of activists doing the Nowruz action, to be delivered to the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations in New York.

Take the 2026 Nowruz Action

At Least 30 People at Risk of Execution for Involvement in the January 2026 Protests

The Iranian authorities are increasingly using executions to punish those accused of involvement in protests and other forms of dissent. Following repeated threats of expedited executions, Iranian authorities have sentenced at least eight people to death in February 2026. At least 22 others, including two children, are
at risk of the death penalty amid fast-tracked torture-tainted grossly unfair trials for alleged
offenses committed during the January 2026 uprising. Iranian authorities have systematically subjected those arrested in connection to the protests to enforced disappearance, incommunicado detention, and torture and other ill-treatment to extract forced “confessions.” Please take this action to urge that all of these convictions and death sentences be overturned. 

On March 30/31, 2026, four men were executed in secret, which is a violation of Iranian law. Seven others are at high risk of being executed. All of the eleven men were reportedly subjected to severe torture and their unfair trials relied on coerced confessions as evidence.

PHOTO GALLERY

COURAGEOUS RAPPER AND HIP HOP ARTIST TOOMAJ SALEHI PERSECUTED FOR SUPPORTING PROTESTERS IN IRAN

Toomaj Salehi is a popular rapper and Hip-Hop artist who has been outspoken in his support of protesters in Iran and in his criticism of the Iranian government for its human rights violations. Read more about Toomaj in the More Actions and News section below.

AIUSA ACTIVISTS SHOW SUPPORT FOR TOOMAJ SALEHI AND ALL IRANIANS PUNISHED FOR INVOLVEMENT IN PROTESTS AT THE UN PLAZA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 19, 2023

Jennifer Estrada, AIUSA Community Program Manager and members of Amnesty International USA Local Group 11 protested the Iranian authorities’ human rights violations on the anniversary of the protests that broke out after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in September 2022.  The action at the Dag Hammarskjold UN Plaza in New York was covered by Radio Farda as well as  by VOA Persian.

Amnesty International Group 11 Holds May Day Action at the Iran UN Mission in New York in Support of Toomaj Salehi and other POCs

Activists Taking the 2024 Nowruz Action

Many Amnesty activists took the 2023 Nowruz action. Here is a collage of photos of the different actions:

HUMAN RIGHTS HERO NASRIN SOTOUDEH

Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent human rights lawyer and women’s rights defender, who has represented a woman sentenced to a long prison term for protesting forced veiling, spent many years in prison. Her husband Reza Khandan is currently in prison serving a six-year sentence imposed by a Revolutionary Court  for campaigning against Iran’s compulsory veiling laws. He is one of the cases in the 2026 Nowruz action.

MORE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ACTIONS AND NEWS