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 →Amnesty International →Iran-Iraq War →Supreme Leader →

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

Russia

Russia vetoed the same renewal on 17 September, arguing that Britain, France and Germany never validly triggered the snapback that reimposed the pre-2015 UN resolutions. No panel was ever seated under that mandate, so the UN list decays fastest for states that screen against it rather than against the American one.

China

China vetoed renewal of the UN sanctions monitoring mandate on 17 September, arguing that Resolution 2231 terminated on 18 October 2025 and that the Security Council should drop Iran's nuclear file altogether. On that reading there is nothing to monitor, so the sanctions survive and their enforcement does not.

Iraq

Baghdad saw the last American counter-Islamic State troops leave its territory on 30 September, completing a timetable it agreed with Washington in September 2024. Iraqi airspace deconfliction passes to Baghdad, which still has an open inquiry into the Maysan drone launches that has named nobody.

Pakistan

Treasury names Waseem Pasha Tajammal of Rawalpindi as the Cavalier group's chairman and places one of the designated incorporations in Islamabad. QatarEnergy separately told Pakistan that liquefied natural gas cargo cancellations would run through November, so Islamabad carries an enforcement question and a supply gap at once.

Turkey

Treasury named a Cavalier Dynamics company incorporated in Istanbul among the ten nodes it designated on 29 September, and Ankara has published no response. Turkey imported a record 120,000 barrels a day of Indian diesel in August, cutting Russia's share of its diesel imports to 20 per cent.

India

Suraj Yadav, a wiper from Uttar Pradesh, was killed aboard the Cape Dao on 23 September, and 19 of the ship's 20 Indian crew were taken off alive. India's September imports ran at 575,000 barrels a day from Iraq and 566,000 from Saudi Arabia, back to pre-conflict rates.