20APR

Iran hangs a 15th uprising protester

3 min read

10:10UTC

Abbas Akbari Feyzabadi was hanged in Isfahan on Monday for taking part in January's protests, the 15th execution tied to the uprising. His sentence was carried out before his family was told.

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Key takeaway

Iran's execution tempo over the January protests continues unbroken while its diplomats negotiate abroad.

Abbas Akbari Feyzabadi was executed on Monday 25 May in Isfahan province on a charge of moharebeh, enmity against God, for taking part in the January 2026 protests, according to i24 News and the Oslo-based monitor Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) ¹. Iranian authorities accused Akbari Feyzabadi of opening fire on security forces and attacking government buildings, and carried out his Supreme Court-upheld sentence before notifying his family.

He was the 15th person put to death over the January uprising, the wave of protests that swept Iran early in the year and met a lethal state response. His case is distinct from that of Mojtaba Kian, executed a day earlier on espionage charges . The two hangings on consecutive days mark different tracks of the same crackdown: one framed as wartime espionage, the other as armed rebellion.

For the reader: moharebeh is a capital charge under Iranian law for waging war against the state, applied here to protest activity that the authorities say turned violent. The pre-notification execution, carrying out the sentence before telling the family, is a pattern rights monitors have documented repeatedly through the war.

The rights record runs in parallel to the diplomacy, not behind it. Amnesty International's 2026 execution register passed 200 earlier this month , and Akbari Feyzabadi's death adds to a count that has not slowed while negotiators talk. The table in Beijing and the gallows in Isfahan ran on the same Monday, and only one of them produced a document.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran executed Abbas Akbari Feyzabadi in Isfahan province on 25 May. He was the 15th person put to death for taking part in the January 2026 protests, which erupted after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the US-Israeli strikes that started the war. He was charged with 'enmity against God', a capital offence under Iran's Islamic Penal Code, based on accusations that he fired on security forces and attacked government buildings. Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) in Oslo documented the execution and confirmed the family received no prior notification. The executions for protest activity continue even as Iranian officials hold diplomatic talks aimed at ending the war, a pattern Iran has followed in previous conflicts and protest crackdowns.

What could happen next?

Consequence
The 15-execution pace for January-uprising activity means European governments conditioning any Iran sanctions relief on human-rights improvements face a rising evidentiary record that makes conditionality politically harder to waive.
Risk
If the pace of executions accelerates beyond 15 before any MOU is signed, parliamentary scrutiny in EU member states may add human-rights conditions to any sanctions-waiver instrument that requires European legal frameworks to implement.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: Following the November 2019 petrol-price protests, in which security forces killed at least 304 people in four days per Amnesty International, Iran executed four protesters on 'enmity against God' charges between July 2020 and January 2021, roughly 14 months after the protests.

The January 2026 protests produced 15 executions in under five months, a rate roughly four times faster. The acceleration pattern matches the 1988 prison massacres, where summary executions of political prisoners were concentrated into a short window during the Iran-Iraq War ceasefire negotiations to prevent international scrutiny from complicating diplomacy.

Counter-parallel: During the 2009 Green Movement, Iran executed two protest-linked convicts, Mohammad Reza Ali-Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour, in January 2010, five months after the protests, at the same pace as the current series. That pace produced global condemnation without any domestic political consequence for the Islamic Republic. The 2009-10 precedent suggests the executions will continue regardless of diplomatic pressure from the MOU talks.

Consensus view: Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) in Oslo and Amnesty International's Iran team both document that the moharebeh (enmity against God) charge used against Akbari Feyzabadi carries a mandatory death penalty under Article 283 of Iran's Islamic Penal Code and has been applied to January 2026 protesters at a rate unprecedented since the 2019 petrol-price protests: 15 executions in roughly five months, against four executions for the entire 2019-2021 protest cycle.

Counter-view: The Iran Tribunal research team at Queen Mary University of London, which tracks judicial procedure in Iranian political cases, notes that the specific charge, opening fire on security forces, differs from the 'spreading corruption on earth' (mofsed-fel-arz) charge that carried executions during 1988 and 2019.

Akbari Feyzabadi was tried on a charge that requires evidentiary proof of armed action, suggesting the judiciary is using a procedurally distinct pathway that allows rapid Supreme Court confirmation without the full appeal timeline.

Key tension: Whether the 15 executions for January-uprising activity represent a deliberate escalatory policy by the Khamenei Council to deter further protest during wartime negotiations, or are the judicial backlog of cases from January 2026 now clearing the Supreme Court at their natural pace.

Sources:i24 News

Mentions:Iran Human Rights →Iran →Isfahan →Amnesty International →NBC News →Mojtaba Kian →Iraq →Beijing →Ali Khamenei →Iran-Iraq War →Abbas Akbari Feyzabadi →

First Reported In

Update #107 · Two markets, two prices on one Iran deal

i24 News· 25 May 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Iran hangs its first wartime spy

Mojtaba Kian's espionage execution on 24 May (ID:3579) is the immediately prior case; Akbari Feyzabadi's moharebeh execution on 25 May is the next in the wartime register.

Occurred 24 May 2026

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Naqadeh executes two Kurdish PDKI prisoners

The Amnesty 200+ execution register (ID:3573) is the running total against which Akbari Feyzabadi's execution as the 15th January-uprising case is placed.

Occurred 21 May 2026

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This Event

Iran hangs a 15th uprising protester

While Iran's diplomats negotiate a war's end abroad, the wartime judicial tempo at home runs unchanged.

Led to

Iran hangs Turkish national, toll rises

Abbas Akbari Feyzabadi executed in Isfahan on 25 May (ID:3609); Shakarab and the 26-27 May cluster escalate the pace into a third consecutive daily execution window.

Occurred 26 May 2026

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Different Perspectives

Oil markets and Lloyd's of London

Brent fell to $89.25 on ceasefire probability, not new barrels, with traders voting for Trump's deed over Tehran's denial. Lloyd's has not repriced Hormuz war-risk cover because its trigger requires a UN Security Council resolution or government certification, so tanker insurance costs remain elevated regardless of the spot move.

Pakistan and Qatar mediators

Pakistan's Mohsin Naqvi was in Tehran for his second visit in under a week, using the Pakistan-Qatar channel that delivered April's ceasefire after an identical public-denial cycle. The channel carries both civilian and military buy-in from Islamabad, the only configuration Iran's split command cannot dismiss as a partial signal.

India

India summoned the US Deputy Chief of Mission after three Indian sailors were killed aboard MT Settebello, the first formal grievance from a major non-belligerent directed at US enforcement. Indian seafarers supply roughly 12 per cent of the global maritime workforce; their presence on third-flag Gulf tankers is structurally inevitable regardless of bilateral diplomacy.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)

The IRGC declared Hormuz closed on 11 June while civilian negotiators were on the same mediation channel, then issued no public comment on the MoU framework. Its silence on the framework, rather than any foreign ministry statement, is the operative approval signal; the corps' unilateral Hormuz closure shows it did not treat the diplomatic track as binding on its operations.

Iran foreign ministry (Baghaei)

Esmail Baghaei told IRNA that reports of a finalised deal were 'merely speculation' and that Iran had 'not yet made a final decision'. The denial is structurally identical to Iranian foreign ministry statements during the April ceasefire talks, which produced a binding text within 48 hours of the same language.

Trump administration / CENTCOM

Trump cancelled the third strike day and called the MoU 'very strong' and almost ready to sign, while CENTCOM kept tanker enforcement running in the same 24-hour window. The administration is simultaneously withdrawing the military pressure it claims drove the deal and sustaining the enforcement campaign it is trying to trade away.