Iran on Wednesday (September 30) executed two men accused of involvement in January’s turbulent anti-government protests, the country’s judiciary said. The protests had begun a month earlier over economic hardship.
The judiciary’s Mizan Online website said Ali Hemmati and Majid Nik-Andish were convicted of involvement in the “January riots” in the north-eastern city of Mashhad, in which four security personnel were killed. It said they set fire to shops, banks, buses and other buildings, causing extensive damage to public property, and even set trees alight.
They were executed early on Wednesday after the Supreme Court upheld their sentences.
The protests began in late December over the rising cost of living and quickly grew into a broad anti-government movement, peaking on January 8 and 9.
Iranian authorities say more than 3,000 people were killed in the violence, which they blame on “terrorist acts” planned by the United States and Israel. Rights groups based abroad, however, say security forces fired on protesters.
US President Donald Trump threatened military intervention in Iran at the time. On February 28 the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran, starting the war in the Middle East.
Arrests and executions in the country have risen since then, linked both to the war and to the protests earlier in the year.
According to two NGOs, Iran Human Rights and Together Against the Death Penalty, at least 1,639 people were executed in Iran in 2025, the highest number in a single year since 1989.
According to Amnesty International, Iran carries out the most executions of any country after China.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report