5APR

Iran Executes Two More Protesters Under Bombardment

2 min read

12:52UTC

Three executions in 48 hours while the country is under aerial attack. At least 11 more men face imminent death.

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ConflictAssessed

Key takeaway

Iran is accelerating protest executions while the world watches the air war.

Mohammadamin Biglari and Shahin Vahedparast were executed on 5 April for attempting to storm a military facility during the January 2026 protests. Two others from the same group of four defendants also face capital punishment. Amnesty International documented torture in detention, forced confessions, and trials it called grossly unfair. ¹

This was the third execution in 48 hours. Amirhossein Hatami, 18 years old, was killed by the state two days earlier . At least 11 men face imminent execution for protest participation. The government found the institutional will and bureaucratic capacity for this while its cities are under bombardment, while its president warns of economic collapse, and while its parliament legislates nuclear defiance. External pressure that might generate internal dissent is managed by eliminating the dissenters.

No Western government has conditioned military coordination with the US on Iran's domestic human rights record during this conflict. The executions proceed in a space where international attention is consumed entirely by the air campaign and the Hormuz blockade.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran is killing people who protested against the government in January 2026, while the country is simultaneously under aerial bombardment. Three people have been executed in 48 hours. One was 18 years old. Human rights groups say the trials used forced confessions and were grossly unfair. At least 11 more men face the same fate. This is happening with very little international attention, because the world is focused on the air strikes and the blocked shipping lane.

What could happen next?

Risk
The wartime execution of political prisoners during a satellite blackout and casualty monitor silence creates near-total opacity for the evidentiary record, making post-conflict accountability structurally harder.

Source Landscape

This story draws on centre-leaning sources from Israel

Israel

LeftRight

Primary parallel: Iran's 1988 political prisoner massacres during the Iran-Iraq war — an estimated 3,000 to 30,000 prisoners executed over several months while the country was under international focus on the Ceasefire negotiations. The killings were largely undocumented until decades later and have never been prosecuted. The current execution acceleration, occurring while satellite imagery is blacked out and casualty monitoring is silent, follows the same opacity structure.

Counter-parallel: Iraq's execution of political prisoners during the 2003-2008 conflict period — prosecuted post-conflict through the Iraqi High Tribunal, though incompletely. Iran's judicial architecture, which gives the Supreme Leader final authority over execution confirmation, makes equivalent post-conflict prosecution structurally more difficult.

Consensus view: Amnesty International and Iran Human Rights (Oslo) both document that wartime executions of political prisoners in Iran follow a historical pattern: the Islamic Republic executed thousands of political prisoners in 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war's final phase, using wartime conditions as political cover for eliminating domestic opposition.

Counter-view: Iranian legal scholar Shirin Ebadi (Nobel Peace Laureate, in exile) argues the executions are not merely opportunistic but structural: the IRGC's wartime consolidation of judicial oversight means military commanders, not civilian judges, are effectively authorising executions.

Key tension: Whether the international community's preoccupation with the air campaign creates durable impunity for wartime political executions, making them impossible to prosecute post-conflict.

Sources:Jerusalem Post

Mentions:Mohammadamin Biglari →Shahin Vahedparast →Iraq →Amirhossein Hatami →Iran →Iran Human Rights →Prima →Amnesty International →

First Reported In

Update #59 · Day 37: A Ground War Inside Iran That Nobody Will Name

Jerusalem Post· 5 Apr 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Iran Executes 18-Year-Old Protester Under Bombardment

Hatami's execution on 3 April was the second in two days; Biglari and Vahedparast executed on 5 April constitute the third, making three executions in 48 hours with 11 further men at imminent risk.

Occurred 3 Apr 2026

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This Event

Iran Executes Two More Protesters Under Bombardment

The accelerating execution rate demonstrates that external military pressure has not deterred internal repression but has provided cover for it.

Different Perspectives

IAEA

Director General Rafael Grossi appeared in person at the UNSC on 19 May and warned that a direct hit on an operating reactor 'could result in very high release of radioactivity'. The session produced a condemnation record but no resolution, and the Barakah perimeter was already struck on 17 May.

Hengaw (Kurdish rights monitor)

Hengaw documented three judicial executions and the detention of Kurdish writer Majid Karimi in Tehran on 19 May, establishing Khorasan Razavi province as the newest geography in Iran's wartime judicial record. The organisation's Norway-based operation continues to surface a domestic repression track running in parallel with every diplomatic and military development.

India

Six India-flagged vessels conducted a coordinated cluster transit under PGSA bilateral assurances during the 17 May window, paying no yuan tolls. New Delhi's inclusion in Iran's state-to-state passage track insulates Indian energy supply without requiring endorsement of the PGSA's yuan-toll architecture or alignment with the US coalition.

Pakistan

Pakistan is the only functioning diplomatic bridge between Tehran and Washington. Its role is relay, not mediation in the settlement sense: it conveyed Iran's 10-point counter-MOU in early May, relayed the US rejection, and is now passing 'corrective points' in the third documented exchange of this sub-cycle without either side working from a shared text.

UK and France (Northwood coalition)

Twenty-six coalition members have published no rules of engagement eight days after the Bahrain joint statement; Lloyd's underwriters have conditioned war-risk reopening on written ROE from either Iran or the coalition. Italian and French mine-countermeasures deployments are operating on the in-water clearance task CENTCOM Admiral Brad Cooper's 90% mine-stockpile claim does not address.

Saudi Arabia

Riyadh has not publicly commented on the Barakah strike or the 50-47 discharge vote. Saudi output feeds the IEA's $106 base case; the $5 Brent premium above that model reflects institutional uncertainty no Gulf producer can compress through supply adjustment alone.