Hengaw, the Norway-based Kurdish human rights organisation, confirmed on Monday 4 May that Iran has sentenced at least 30 detainees from the January 2026 protests to death and secretly executed 13 of them1. The figure translates to roughly half of the documented protest cohort moved from cell to gallows in under four months. Iran International and Iran Human Rights Monitor (Iran HRM) corroborated, reporting at least 22 political prisoners hanged in the last six weeks, including ten detained during the January 2026 protests. Chief Justice Mohseni Eje'i has repeatedly ordered acceleration of death sentences. The trials feature fast-tracked timelines, torture-tainted confessions and no independent counsel.
The figure reframes the individual cases the briefing has tracked. Ebrahim Dolatabadi, executed in Mashhad six days after sentencing on 4 May; Mehdi Rasouli and Mohammadreza Miri, executed the same day in Mashhad on Mossad-collaboration charges; Mehrab Abdollahzadeh, executed at Urmia Central Prison on 3 May; Yaqoub Karimpour and Naser Bakrzadeh, executed 2 May; Sasan Azadvar, the 21-year-old karate champion executed at Dastgerd on 30 April; Jafar Fakhrabadi at Yazd Central Prison on 28 April. Hengaw's documentation now places these named individuals inside a single cohort of 30 sentenced and 13 already secretly executed, with 17 more on death row.
Iran HRM's wartime political-execution count stood at 22 as of 1 May; Hengaw's update raises the secretly-executed total alone to 13 from that protest cohort, before the named cases the briefing has tracked are added. Qasem Nouri Roudini, a Baloch prisoner, was executed on 4 May despite having his death sentence overturned twice2. A Gilak prisoner was executed in Rasht on Tuesday 5 May. The 'No to Executions Tuesdays' campaign continues across 56 facilities. The state programme behind the individual hangings is now visible because Hengaw has counted the cell occupants and matched them to the announced sentences.
