Author: Keyvan Rafiee

CBS – Woman among 4 more Iranians sentenced to death over protests, rights groups say

Iranian authorities have sentenced to death four more people, including a woman, over last January’s protests, several rights groups said on Tuesday.

Iran has already hanged seven people in connection with the protests, which activists say were put down in a crackdown that killed thousands and led to tens of thousands of arrests.

Rights groups accuse the Islamic Republic of using the death penalty as a tool of repression to instill fear in society, and fear it will ramp up capital punishment in the wake of the war against Israel and the United States.

The four were sentenced to death by a Tehran Revolutionary Court presided over by the notorious judge Imam Afshari after being convicted of carrying out actions on behalf of the United States, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center said in separate statements.

The regime’s judiciary accused the group of numerous charges, including “using explosives and weapons,” “harming stationed forces on-site,” and “throwing objects including bottles, concrete blocks, and incendiary materials from the roofs of buildings,” according to the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran.

It was not immediately clear when the verdict was issued.

The four convicted were named as Mohammadreza Majidi-Asl and his wife Bita Hemmati, along with two other men, Behrouz Zamaninejad and Kourosh Zamaninejad, who lived in the same Tehran building as the married couple.

Hemmati is believed to be the first woman to be sentenced to death over the protests.

The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center said it also believed that Hemmati was the woman who appeared in a video broadcast on state television in January being personally interrogated by judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei.

“The recording and broadcasting of forced confessions from defendants in an opaque process … constitutes a blatant violation of the defendant’s rights,” it said.

According to Iran Human Rights Monitor, Iran has carried out 656 executions in the first three months of this year but the actual tally is “likely far higher” since Iran was largely offline in March when only eight were recorded.

Norway-based Iran Human Rights and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty said on Monday in their joint annual report on the death penalty in Iran that at least 1,639 people were executed in 2025 — including 48 women.

As well as the seven already executed, death sentences have been issued against at least 26 other people arrested over the January protests and several hundred more are facing charges that could see them executed, Iran Human Rights warned.

Last month, Iran executed three men who were accused of killing police officers during the protests, including Saleh Mohammadi, a young member of Iran’s national wrestling team.

“Dozens of individuals arrested during the January 2026 protests have been sentenced to death following grossly unfair, fast-tracked trials conducted without due process, access to independent counsel and reliance on torture-tainted forced ‘confessions’ as evidence,” said the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran called on the United Nations “to take immediate action to save the lives of prisoners sentenced to death, especially political prisoners and those detained during the uprising.”

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The Jerusalem Post – Iran to execute first woman prisoner linked to January protests as regime executions surge

Iranian authorities are preparing to execute Bita Hemmati, the first woman sentenced to death in connection with the mass protests in Tehran in late December and January, according to the US-based non-profit the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).

Judge Iman Afshari, of Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, sentenced Hemmati, her husband, Mohammadreza Majidi Asl, and Behrouz Zamaninezhad, and Kourosh Zamaninezhad to death on the charge of “operational action for the hostile government of the United States and hostile groups,” in addition to discretionary imprisonment period of five years on the charge of “assembly and collusion against national security.”

A fifth defendant, Amir Hemmati, was sentenced to five years of discretionary imprisonment on the charge of “assembly and collusion against national security,” and eight months in prison for “propaganda against the regime,” according to HRANA.

The four sentenced to death were arrested while demonstrating in Tehran and subjected to torture before their sentencing, according to a press release by the National Council of Resistance of Iran. HRANA also purported to have received evidence that the defendants were forced to confess.

The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center released a statement stating it believed Hemmati was the woman who was interrogated by judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i on state television in January.

“The recording and broadcasting of forced confessions from defendants in an opaque process … constitutes a blatant violation of the defendant’s rights,” it said.

The charges listed by the Iranian regime’s judiciary included allegedly “using explosives and weapons, harming stationed forces on-site, throwing objects including bottles, concrete blocks, and incendiary materials from the roofs of buildings, destroying public property, participating in protest gatherings, and chanting protest slogans.” However, HRANA claimed to have obtained a copy of the verdict, which failed to detail how the defendants were involved in the allegations.

Authorities also accused them of acting in line with disrupting national security and in connection with “hostile groups,” as well as sending content with the aim of undermining security.

No execution date has been announced for the four prisoners.

The planned executions come amid a broader increase in capital punishment in Iran. According to a report by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty (EPCM), the regime carried out at least 1,639 executions over the past year.

Death sentences have been issued against at least 26 other people arrested over the January protests, and at least seven have already been killed.

 

 

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MSN – Iran’s true casualty figures unknown as internet blackout hampers monitors

Iran has not updated its official death toll figures for weeks, while human rights groups outside the country are struggling with chronic communication problems, meaning the number of people killed during the war remains largely unknown.

The last time Iran’s health ministry gave a full update about casualties was on March 8, the ninth day of the conflict, when it said around 1,200 civilians had been killed in US and Israeli airstrikes across the country.

Overseas human rights groups have long been considered one of the most reliable sources of information about life inside the heavily censored country.

But with Iran’s connections to the global internet cut off and phone lines down, they are struggling to reach their networks of contacts who are their eyes and ears on the ground.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), which played an important role corroborating deaths during anti-government protests in January, estimates the civilian death toll at 1,407 people, including 214 children.

“I would say it’s an absolute, absolute minimum, and that’s simply because we don’t have the capacity to be everywhere at one time, understanding the full extent of what’s happening,” HRANA deputy director Skylar Thompson told AFP.

“With the scale and the speed at which places are being targeted across the country, it’s impossible to document it at the same pace,” she added.

The Iranian Red Crescent is not providing casualty estimates, but its latest figures indicate 61,555 homes, 19,000 businesses, 275 medical centers, and nearly 500 schools have been damaged.

AFP journalists have been able to confirm that many civilian buildings in Tehran have been damaged, including apartment blocks caught in the blast wave of nearby missile or bomb strikes, but not beyond the city.

Reporters are unable to travel around the country without official authorization.

– Connection problems –

Distrust of Iran’s official figures is high among human rights groups, particularly after the bloody crackdown on anti-government protests in January.

Although Iran acknowledged around 3,000 deaths, mostly among security forces, researchers and campaigners outside Iran estimated that anywhere from 7,000 to 35,000 people were killed in the indiscriminate shooting.

“The Islamic republic has a history of not publishing or not collecting data,” Awyar Shekhi from the Norway-based human rights group Hengaw told AFP.

The problem for Hengaw and others seeking to provide a credible alternative to the incomplete official data has been the almost-total shutdown of Iran’s internet connections to the outside world since the start of the war on February 28.

“The connection is worse than it ever was before, so it’s really difficult to get accurate data of how many people have been killed, and the information we get is so little,” Shekhi added.

Both she and Thompson stressed that Iranian authorities have been threatening and arresting people who have illegally accessed the global internet to send information abroad, sometimes accusing them of spying.

Making telephone calls to Iran from abroad is also largely impossible.

– ‘Focus on the civilian harm’ –

The biggest loss of life for civilians in the war so far was the airstrike on an elementary school in Minab on the first day of the war that killed at least 165 people, according to an official toll.

A US Tomahawk cruise missile hit the school because of a targeting mistake, according to the preliminary findings of a US military investigation reported by The New York Times.

Hengaw also documented an airstrike on a flour factory in the city of western Naqadeh on March 7 that killed 11 workers and injured another 21.

“I believe that the US and Israel are using a quite aggressive interpretation of what is a military target,” Thompson from HRANA added.

Unlike in January, during the anti-government protests, she said there had so far been relatively little attention in the Western media on the toll of ordinary Iranians.

“There’s such a focus on the geopolitics of it all, I think it’s really important to have a focus on the civilian harm,” she added.

Elsewhere in the region, Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes had killed 1,029 people in the country.

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UCC – Easter Persists

Do you feel it too? The heaviness of these days. The weight of so many seemingly intractable challenges in our nation and world. The weariness of facing the daily barrage of bad news and dispiriting circumstances.

We awoke to news on Sunday morning that peace talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Pakistan had failed to bring any meaningful agreements. Meanwhile, the Human Rights Activists News Agency reported the mounting human toll of this war.

1,701 civilians dead in Iran, including 254 children. 1,953 people killed in Lebanon and fully 1/5 of Lebanon’s entire population displaced. 20 people killed in Israel, 32 killed in other Gulf nations. 13 American service members dead and thousands more whose loved ones worry for their safety. A humanitarian crisis throughout the Middle East that is widening every day. And economic pressures here in the United States that continue to deepen.

On Monday morning President Trump posted an AI image on X that was yet another frightening indicator of this dire moment. It depicted him clothed in white robes, apparently bestowing healing on a prone man , a beam of light in his hand and an American flag at his back. White faces look up at him in adoration, and military planes fly overhead. It was white Christian nationalism on full display, a revolting attempt to characterize this President as some kind of Christ-like, salvific figure. The pure definition of blasphemy.

All of this while Eastertide lingers, inviting us to trust that God can wrestle new life from the very worst day, can carve the possible out of what seems utterly impossible. It’s hard to hold onto these Easter promises, though, when this is the current state of things. It can feel instead like we’re stuck in the cruelty and violence of Good Friday, gripped by the overwhelming uncertainty and grief that Jesus’ followers experienced on that Holy Saturday.

And yet. Easter did come. Christ rose. Death was vanquished. The love and goodness and presence of God could not be snuffed out by all the madness of the world or the corrupt powers of the day. Then —and now— new life beckons. Hope persists. Easter cannot be shut out or shut down. We believe.

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New York Post – Executions in Iran doubled in 2025 — marking a 36-year high: report

The Iranian regime executed more than 1,600 people last year — marking a three decade high not seen since the end of the Islamic Republic’s war against Iraq in 1989.

The shocking figures were included in a joint report released by the nonprofit Iran Human Rights and Together Against the Death Penalty, which estimated that in 2025 at least four people were put to death each day in Iran.

In total, at least 1,639 were executed in Iran last year, the highest reported number since the post-war bloodbath in 1989, where an estimated 1,700 political prisoners were executed, according to the report.

It’s not clear how many of the executions were done publicly.

Most of last year’s prisoners were hanged for drug-related offenses or murder at ostensibly higher rates compared to 2024. Drug-related convictions resulting in death saw a 58% increase, while murder convictions — which almost always leads to execution — jumped a staggering 79%, according to the report.

At least 57 others, including two protesters, were given the death penalty for intangible charges like “waging war against God” and “corruption on Earth,” according to the report.

At least 48 women were also killed, setting another 20-year record, according to the report.

A bulk of the death sentences were handed down by the Revolutionary Courts “after grossly unfair trials and without due process,” the report said.

The nonprofits noted that those in marginalized groups, including ethnic and religious minorities, were “disproportionately represented among those executed.”

The report does not account for the slew of executions that have been ordered since January’s nationwide revolt and the start of the war with Israel and the US.

State media has already confirmed at least 14 executions by the brutal regime this year, though the Norwegian-based Hengaw Organization for Human Rights reported evidence of as many as 160 hangings since January.

Seven of the known hangings linked to protest activity took place after Operation Epic Fury launched in late February. Six other victims were convicted of membership with the exiled opposition group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), and one was accused of spying for Israel, the report said.

Separately, upwards of 7,000 protestors were slaughtered in the streets during the height of the winter revolution, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, though thousands more are still under investigation

Just last week, Iran’s hardline chief justice demanded all death penalty cases of “agents and affiliates of the enemy” — which includes protesters — be expedited.

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straits Times – Woman among four more Iranians sentenced to death over protests: NGOs

The Iranian authorities have sentenced to death four more people, including a woman, over protests in January, several rights groups said on April 14.

Iran has already hanged seven people in connection with the protests, which activists say were quelled in a crackdown that left thousands dead and tens of thousands arrested.

Rights groups accuse the Islamic republic of using the death penalty as a tool of repression to instil fear in society, and fear it will ramp up capital punishment in the wake of the war against Israel and the United States.

The four were sentenced to death by a Tehran Revolutionary Court presided over by the notorious Judge Iman Afshari after being convicted of carrying out actions on behalf of the US, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency and Abdorrahman Boroumand Center said in separate statements.

They had been accused of throwing concrete blocks at security forces in the capital from a residential building. It was not immediately clear when the verdict was issued.

The four convicted were Mohammadreza Majidi-Asl and his wife Bita Hemmati, as well as Behrouz Zamaninejad and Kourosh Zamaninejad, who lived in the same Tehran building as the married couple.

Hemmati is believed to be the first woman to be sentenced to death over the protests.

The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center said it also believed that Hemmati was the woman being personally interrogated by Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei in a video broadcast on state television in January.

“The recording and broadcasting of forced confessions from defendants in an opaque process… constitutes a blatant violation of the defendant’s rights,” the center added.

Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty said on April 13 in their joint annual report on the death penalty in Iran that at least 1,639 people have been executed in 2025 – including 48 women.

In addition to the seven people who were executed, death sentences have been issued against at least 26 other people arrested over the January protests and several hundred more are facing charges that could see them executed, IHR warned.

The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said: “Dozens of individuals arrested during the January 2026 protests have been sentenced to death following grossly unfair, fast-tracked trials conducted without due process (and) access to independent counsel, and reliance on torture-tainted forced ‘confessions’ as evidence.”

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Yahoo – MAGA rep’s town hall descends into chaos as he tries to defend Trump’s Iran war: ‘Act like an adult, and stop’

Representative Mike Lawler’s town hall descended into chaos Sunday night as he tried to defend President Donald Trump’s war in Iran.

The MAGA congressman from New York faced his constituents in yet another controversial town hall at Mahopac High School in Putnam County.

As the audience, frustrated by the Iran war that started on February 28, began to heckle Lawler, the congressman suggested they were acting like children.

“We’re in a high school auditorium, and high school students act a lot better than you are acting,” Lawler said, per the New York publication, The Journal News. “Actually act like an adult, and stop.”

Lawler expressed his support for the U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran, arguing, “We need to do everything we can to ensure that this regime never gets a nuclear weapon.”

Shortly after launching the war, Trump said Iran posed an imminent threat to Americans with its nuclear ambitions and development of long-range weapons. Peace talks in Pakistan fell through at the weekend as Vice President JD Vance, who was leading the U.S. delegation, said Iran refused to give assurances it would not seek a nuclear weapon.

One audience member at Sunday’s town hall said it wasn’t enough for Lawler to merely tell Trump when he disagrees with him, demanding that the congressman “must impeach” the president.

“He’s a fraud, he’s corrupt, he’s an incompetent psychopath. The Republican Party and you are enabling him. You’re all cowards, and you’re spineless,” the man, who was later escorted out, said.

Lawler was specifically asked about his opposition to a war powers resolution, largely led by Democrats, that would’ve curbed Trump’s ability to launch further attacks without congressional approval.

The congressman argued Trump is “well within his authority to conduct the strikes that have been conducted,” according to The Washington Post. “If, at the end of these 90 days, the conflict is not done, then yes, Congress should take steps to authorize continuing force.”

Another point of contention was the endangering of U.S. troops in the conflict. Thirteen American service members have died, and more than 300 have been injured, according to reports.

“You have in fact endangered our young people, our service members of our country and killed civilians by not standing up to Trump on this unjustified war,” a woman who identified herself as a military mother and daughter said at the town hall.

Around 1,700 civilians, including more than 250 children, have been killed in the war, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.

When reached for comment, Lawler’s team directed The Independent to his campaign kickoff event in Pearl River on Sunday, where Rabbi Shmuel Gancz from the Chabad Jewish Center of Suffern praised the congressman’s support for Israel during the growing conflict in the region.

“His leadership reflects a broader vision in his work in addressing the complex challenges in the Middle East,” Gancz said.

“He has helped confront serious threats,” the rabbi continued. “We are especially proud of the courage that our congressman has shown in standing up for Israel.”

Lawler also faced a rowdy crowd at a town hall in February after the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in January.

Republican town halls have become particularly chaotic since Trump took office for the second time. Republican leadership went as far as to advise GOP lawmakers to stop holding in-person meetings with constituents last year.

Lawler serves the highly competitive, politically divided 17th Congressional District of New York. He is up for reelection this November.

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Teleprensa – Irán constata más de 3.300 muertos desde el comienzo de los ataques de EEUU e Israel

Las autoridades iraníes han elevado este domingo a más de 3.300 los muertos desde el comienzo de los ataques de Estados Unidos e Israel contra el país el pasado 28 de febrero.

La Organización de Medicina Forense de Irán ha identificado ya a 3.375 fallecidos, entre 2.875 hombres y 496 mujeres.

La agencia iraní no distingue entre caídos en combate y víctimas civiles, pero organizaciones no gubernamentales como Activistas por Derechos Humanos en Irán (HRANA) estimaban a mediados de semana que los fallecidos están repartiendo aproximadamente por igual entre ambos segmentos de población.

HRANA, en su último balance actualizado hasta el miércoles, cifra los fallecidos en 3.636, de ellos 1.701 civiles, contando al menos a 254 niños. La ONG anunció al mismo tiempo que se trataría de su último recuento debido al “cambio en la situación sobre el terreno y la incertidumbre sobre si el alto el fuego se mantendrá o fracasará”.

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Unotv – Irán reporta 3 mil 375 muertos desde el inicio de la guerra con EE. UU. e Israel

El Gobierno de Irán informó que suman 3 mil 375 muertos en la guerra contra Estados Unidos e Israel, iniciada el 28 de febrero, de acuerdo con datos de la Organización de Medicina Forense del país.

La cifra fue dada a conocer este domingo por el titular del organismo, Abás Masjedi, quien señaló que se han identificado los cuerpos de las personas fallecidas durante el conflicto.

Irán reporta 3 mil 375 muertos en guerra contra Estados Unidos e Israel

Según la Organización de Medicina Forense, el total de 3 mil 375 muertos corresponde a personas identificadas desde el inicio de la guerra entre Irán, Estados Unidos e Israel.

Abás Masjedi indicó que dentro del balance se encuentran 2 mil 875 hombres, sin detallar si se trata de civiles, menores de edad o integrantes de fuerzas armadas.

El funcionario explicó que los datos corresponden a registros oficiales del organismo que depende del poder judicial iraní, y fueron difundidos a través de la agencia estatal Irna.

ONG reporta más muertos en conflicto entre Irán, Estados Unidos e Israel
Por su parte, la organización Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), con sede en Estados Unidos, reportó cifras distintas sobre el número de víctimas.

De acuerdo con este organismo, hasta el 6 de abril se contabilizaban al menos 3 mil 597 muertos en la guerra entre Irán, Estados Unidos e Israel.

Dentro de este total, HRANA señaló que 1 mil 665 eran civiles, entre ellos al menos 248 niños, según su propio registro.

Diferencias en cifras de muertos por guerra Irán-Estados Unidos-Israel
Las cifras reportadas por autoridades de Irán y por la ONG HRANA presentan diferencias en el número total de fallecidos durante la guerra contra Estados Unidos e Israel.

Mientras el gobierno iraní reporta 3 mil 375 muertos, la organización con sede en Estados Unidos eleva el número a 3 mil 597 víctimas.

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Arab Times – Whereabouts of Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh unknown 12 days after arrest

Concerns are mounting over the whereabouts of prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, 12 days after her arrest, according to the human rights website HRANA. The report said Sotoudeh has had only one brief phone call with her family since being detained.

During the call, she reportedly said she was arrested by agents of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry but did not disclose her location or where she is currently being held. Her family has since contacted judicial and security authorities in an attempt to obtain information about her detention.

However, HRANA reported that officials told the family her name does not appear in any judicial registration system, raising further concerns about her legal status and condition.

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