Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
Iran Conflict 2026
24APR

Hengaw: two hanged during ceasefire window

2 min read
11:11UTC

Hengaw documented that Mohammadamin Biglari, a 19-year-old computer-science student, and Shahin Vahedparast Kalour, 30, were hanged at dawn on 5 April at Ghezel Hesar Prison without a final family visit. The war execution tally is now at least 13.

ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Three political-prisoner executions inside the ceasefire window show Tehran is not treating the truce as a constraint on domestic repression.

Mohammadamin Biglari, a 19-year-old computer-science student, and Shahin Vahedparast Kalour, 30, were hanged at dawn on 5 April at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj without a final family visit, after trials lasting under a month 1. Both were arrested on 8 January 2026. The documentation was filed by Hengaw, the Kurdish human rights monitoring organisation that has tracked this caseload through the war , and brings the Iranian political-prisoner execution tally since the war began to at least 13, three of them within four days during the declared ceasefire window.

The timing matters more than the total. A ceasefire declared on Truth Social on 8 April should, at a minimum, freeze the state's active measures against its own citizens for the period it is in force. Three executions inside that window, two of them attributed by Hengaw to Ghezel Hesar alone, establish that the Iranian judicial machinery is not treating the ceasefire as a constraint on domestic repression. It is operating at wartime tempo behind prison walls while the diplomatic text it is responding to does not formally exist.

Ghezel Hesar in Karaj has been the primary execution site tracked by Hengaw through this period, and the profile of the two men hanged on 5 April (young, civilian, trials shorter than four weeks, no family visit permitted) matches a documented pattern across the 13-case sample. The practical function of publishing the Hengaw filing around the two-week anniversary of the ceasefire is to make that pattern visible before the 22 April ceasefire window closes and any tally compiled during the window becomes the metric diplomats inherit.

For European governments weighing engagement, the documentation creates a specific record. A diplomatic off-ramp that ignores 13 documented executions inside a ceasefire is politically harder to sell to legislatures that monitor Iranian human rights reporting; one that conditions engagement on the executions stopping creates a new criterion Tehran has not been asked to meet.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran has been executing political prisoners throughout this war, and the pace has not slowed during the declared ceasefire. A human rights organisation called Hengaw, which monitors conditions inside Iranian prisons, has documented at least 13 executions of political prisoners since the war began in February. The two most recently documented cases are Mohammadamin Biglari, a 19-year-old university student studying computer science, and Shahin Vahedparast Kalour, aged 30. Both were arrested on the same day in January, both were hanged at dawn on 5 April at Ghezel Hesar Prison near Tehran, and neither was allowed a final visit with their family. Their trials lasted less than a month each. The timing matters. A ceasefire announced by the US president on social media on 8 April should pause hostilities against a country's own citizens as much as against foreign combatants. Three of the 13 documented executions occurred during the ceasefire window. The Iranian judicial system appears to be running at wartime speed behind prison walls regardless of what the ceasefire says.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    Three documented executions inside the ceasefire window create a specific human-rights record that European governments conditioning engagement on Iranian domestic conduct will face in their own legislatures.

First Reported In

Update #68 · Sanctioned tankers slip the blockade

Hengaw· 14 Apr 2026
Read original
Different Perspectives
Oil markets / Lloyd's of London
Oil markets / Lloyd's of London
Brent fell to near $87.33 on 80 per cent deal-probability pricing, but Lloyd's has not de-listed Hormuz from its war-risk register and shipping diversions continue at 139 vessels. Insurance markets are lagging futures: physical risk remains while financial markets have spent the good news before the paper exists.
India
India
Modi is expected to raise the deaths of three Indian sailors in the 11 June CENTCOM strike on the MT Settebello with Trump at G7 sidelines, the first non-party leader to put the blockade's human cost into a formal bilateral. New Delhi is also a major Iranian oil buyer whose import volumes the sanctions-relief terms will govern.
Israel (Netanyahu)
Israel (Netanyahu)
Netanyahu stated Israel is not party to the deal on 12 June; Defence Minister Katz ruled out the Lebanon withdrawal Iran's draft demands, inserting a third blocker the US-Iran negotiating channel cannot resolve. Israel's position tethers Hormuz reopening to a Lebanon settlement Washington has not brokered.
Pakistan (mediator, Sharif/Naqvi)
Pakistan (mediator, Sharif/Naqvi)
Sharif declared a final agreed text on 12 June before either principal confirmed it, running two Tehran visits in under a week without securing a written IRGC or Khamenei response. Islamabad's incentive to claim a diplomatic win outpaces its standing to deliver either capital's signature.
Iran foreign ministry (Araghchi)
Iran foreign ministry (Araghchi)
Araghchi declared digital signing within days while setting dilute-in-Iran as a non-negotiable red line on the 440.9 kg HEU stockpile, a standing Tehran position he cannot override without authorisation from Khamenei, reachable only by courier. The FM track is sprinting to close before the IRGC reasserts control.
Trump administration / CENTCOM
Trump administration / CENTCOM
Vance called the deal still TBD on 12 June while CENTCOM downed Iranian drones over Hormuz for a second consecutive night and the White House register stayed blank. Washington holds the ship-out position on HEU and has not signed an Iran instrument in over 100 days of conflict.