Hengaw and Iran Human Rights confirmed that Ebrahim Dolatabadi, a protest leader from the Tabarsi area, was secretly executed in Mashhad on 4 May 2026, six days after he was sentenced on a moharebeh (waging war against God) charge.1 The compressed timeline is the shortest sentencing-to-execution gap documented in the wartime register, against an Iranian judicial norm that typically runs 90 to 180 days from sentencing to enforcement.
The procedural shortcut matters more than any single case. Moharebeh is a capital charge under Article 279 of the Islamic Penal Code, requiring an act of armed insurrection against the state; the offence is normally appealed through Branch 1 of the Supreme Court, which alone routinely consumes 60 to 90 days. A six-day window forecloses that appeal entirely. Hengaw reported that Dolatabadi's family received no advance notification and that the body was not returned, characteristic markers of a secret execution.
Dolatabadi's hanging on 4 May arrived alongside Rasouli and Miri in the same city on the same morning. The previous day, Mehrab Abdollahzadeh was executed at Urmia Central Prison. On 2 May, Bakrzadeh and Karimpour were hanged on Israel-espionage charges. Iran Human Rights records six confirmed political executions in eight days and at least 25 since the 28 February strikes began. Iran's judiciary is processing the same statute faster, not amending it.
The cumulative effect is a register that Iran Human Rights can document but the official Iranian state register does not acknowledge. European parliamentary motions on Iran Human Rights gain a sharper data point ahead of any reopening of EU diplomatic engagement on Hormuz, even as the Pakistan back-channel carries its first written US reply.
