8NOV

Iran hangs two 20-year-olds in Isfahan

2 min read

19:56UTC

Amirhossein Maleki and Amirhossein Ebrahimi, arrested in January's protests in Malekshahr, were hanged at Isfahan Central Prison on 3 November, the rights group Hengaw reported.

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ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

Hengaw counts nine of the 12 people sentenced to death over January's Malekshahr killings as hanged.

Iran hanged Amirhossein Maleki and Amirhossein Ebrahimi, both 20, at Isfahan Central Prison on Tuesday 3 November, the Kurdish rights group Hengaw reported, adding that the judiciary's Mizan news agency had confirmed the hangings⁠¹. Ebrahimi, a medical student, and Maleki were arrested during the January 2026 protests in Malekshahr, a district of Isfahan. A court convicted them of moharebeh, or "waging war against God", and other charges over the killing on 8 January of four members of the special police and the Basij, the volunteer militia under the Revolutionary Guards.

Hengaw says Ebrahimi was tortured into confessing. It counts nine of the 12 people sentenced to death in the case as hanged. The judiciary maintains that the defendants killed members of the security forces.

These cases come from the unrest that preceded the war, not from wartime charges. Iran hanged Ali-Sina Mostafavi on 14 October over armed attacks in Kerman during the war, and two men in Mashhad on 30 September, an execution Mizan also announced.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

In January large protests broke out across Iran and security forces cracked down hard. On 3 November Iran hanged two 20-year-old men, Amirhossein Maleki and Amirhossein Ebrahimi, a medical student, at a prison in the city of Isfahan. Hengaw, a rights group, reported it, and Iran's judiciary confirmed it. The courts convicted them of moharebeh, which means 'waging war against God', over the deaths of four members of the security forces during a protest. Hengaw says Ebrahimi was tortured into confessing. Nine of the 12 people sentenced to death in that case have now been executed.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

moharebeh is among the gravest charges in Iran's penal code and can carry the death penalty. Linking protest arrests to deaths of security forces moves defendants into that category and narrows the room for clemency.

The January crackdown produced a run of capital cases. Earlier hangings from the same unrest include Ashkan Maleki and Mehrdad Mohammadinia at Ghezel Hesar on 1 June and Mohammad Amini Dehaghani in Isfahan on 15 July, so the cases are working through the courts in sequence.

War conditions widen the state's security framing. Charges of collaboration with the enemy now sit beside protest charges, as in the 30 September Mashhad hangings announced through Mizan.

What could happen next?

Risk
Three more defendants in the Malekshahr case remain under death sentence, by Hengaw's count, and face execution on the same pattern.
Meaning
The hangings undercut the president's conciliatory message to the public delivered the same week.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources from Iran

Iran

Primary parallel: On 19 May 2023 Iran hanged Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi in Isfahan, convicted over the deaths of security personnel during the November 2022 protests in the same city. Rights groups said those confessions were also obtained under torture, and the executions went ahead despite international appeals.

Counter-parallel: In June 2024 Iran's Supreme Court overturned the death sentence passed on the rapper Toomaj Salehi over the 2022 protests. A capital sentence in a protest case can still be reversed when the charge does not rest on a killing.

Consensus view: Hengaw says Amirhossein Ebrahimi was tortured into confessing and that nine of the 12 people sentenced to death in the Malekshahr case have now been hanged.

Counter-view: Iran's judiciary, through its Mizan agency, holds that the defendants killed four members of the special police and the Basij on 8 January and were convicted of moharebeh, corruption on earth and collaboration with the enemy.

Key tension: Whether the hangings reflect a judiciary acting on its own timetable or a state line, given that President Masoud Pezeshkian said the day before the hangings that his government was "not going to fight our own people".

Sources:Hengaw

Mentions:Qezel Hesar Prison →Iran →Amirhossein Maleki →Hengaw →Mizan →Dastgerd Prison →Malekshahr →Basij →moharebeh →Ali-Sina Mostafavi →Mashhad →Isfahan →Masoud Pezeshkian →Kerman →Supreme Court of Iran →Toomaj Salehi →

First Reported In

Update #184 · Iran offers talks, blacklists 114 more ships

Hengaw· 8 Nov 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Iran hangs a man Mizan ties to Israel

Iran hanged two Isfahan protesters three weeks after hanging Ali-Sina Mostafavi over wartime attacks in Kerman.

Occurred 14 Oct 2026

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This Event

Iran hangs two 20-year-olds in Isfahan

The executions show Iran's judiciary still working through January's protest cases while the war continues, with nine of the 12 death sentences in this case now carried out, by Hengaw's count.

Different Perspectives

Office for Budget Responsibility

The OBR's 28 October forecast assumed $82 oil for 2026 and 2027, from market prices for the ten working days to 19 August, and blamed dearer wholesale energy on the war without naming Iran. It expects CPI inflation close to 4% in early 2027 even at that price.

Hengaw, Kurdish rights group

Hengaw reported the 3 November hangings of Amirhossein Maleki and Amirhossein Ebrahimi in Isfahan, saying Ebrahimi was tortured into confessing and that nine of 12 people sentenced to death in the case have now been hanged. Iran's judiciary holds that the defendants killed members of the security forces.

FINTRAC, Canada's financial intelligence unit

FINTRAC worked with the US Treasury on the 6 November designation of eight money services businesses in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. Treasury says the businesses still operate, some under new names, so closing them falls to Ottawa.

Abdul Qadir al-Dakhil, Governor of Nineveh

Al-Dakhil cancelled three Mosul International Airport contracts on 7 November over alleged links to armed groups, after meeting Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi in Baghdad. He named no group or company, and said the contracts will go to international companies.

Kuwait

Kuwait condemned the Houthi missile fired towards the Madinah region on 5 November and restated its support for Saudi Arabia, the Qatar News Agency reported. Its state tanker company, Kuwait Oil Tankers Company, is among the Gulf state fleets on Iran's expanded Hormuz list.

Scott Bessent, US Treasury Secretary

Treasury designated an alleged Chandigarh false-flag network on 4 November and eight Canadian exchangers on 6 November, while State sanctioned alleged MANPADS intermediaries. None of the actions touches an oil buyer; they target the paper, cash and procurement around Iran's trade.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.