Skip to content
Briefings are running a touch slower this week while we rebuild the foundations.See roadmap
Iran Conflict 2026
25APR

Hengaw: two hanged during ceasefire window

2 min read
20:34UTC

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
International human rights monitors (NetBlocks, IHR, Hengaw)
International human rights monitors (NetBlocks, IHR, Hengaw)
NetBlocks recorded 1,704 cumulative hours of near-total internet blackout for roughly 90 million Iranians on Day 74, while IHR documented ongoing executions under emergency provisions. These organisations are the only active monitoring windows into a civilian population cut off from the global internet for 71 consecutive days.
UK / France coalition
UK / France coalition
The Royal Navy confirmed HMS Dragon's Hormuz deployment on its own website on 11 May, converting a press-reported presence into declared force posture; UK and French defence ministers hosted a coalition meeting the same day. Britain and France are now the only named contributors to a Hormuz escort mission all five allies Trump originally asked had declined.
Saudi Aramco / Gulf producers
Saudi Aramco / Gulf producers
Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser warned on 11 May that a Hormuz closure could remove 100 million barrels of weekly supply from global markets (roughly 15 million barrels per day for a week), a figure that dwarfs any OPEC+ swing capacity. The warning functions as both a price-floor signal and a public pressure on Washington to protect transit.
Beijing / Chinese Government
Beijing / Chinese Government
China has not publicly acknowledged the four Hong Kong-registered entities designated on 11 May or extended MOFCOM's Blocking Rules cover to HK-domiciled firms. Xi Jinping hosts Trump on 14–15 May having already de-risked state-bank balance sheets via NFRA's quiet loan halt, entering the summit partially compliant before any negotiation.
Tehran / Iranian Government
Tehran / Iranian Government
Foreign Minister Araghchi described Iran's 10-point counter-proposal as 'reasonable and responsible' via spokesman Baqaei on 11 May, and widened the mediator pool by meeting Turkish, Egyptian, and Dutch counterparts in a single day. Tehran is buying procedural runway while Trump's verbal rejection went unmatched by any written US counter.
Trump White House
Trump White House
Trump called the ceasefire 'on massive life support' and dismissed Iran's 10-point counter-proposal as 'a piece of garbage' on 11 May, while departing for Beijing two days later with no signed Iran instrument to show Congress. The verbal maximum and the paper void coexist: the administration is running a legal pressure campaign through Treasury while the president free-lances the rhetoric.