3MAY

Iran executes Erfan Kiani, eighth wartime hanging

3 min read

10:26UTC

Erfan Kiani was executed in the early hours of Saturday 25 April on moharebeh and protest-related charges. Hengaw counts him as the eighth political prisoner executed since the war began.

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Key takeaway

Kiani is the eighth wartime political execution; three Ali Fahim co-defendants remain flagged for imminent hanging.

Erfan Kiani was executed in the early hours of Saturday 25 April, the eighth political prisoner executed since the war began per Hengaw ¹. Kiani was arrested during protests in Isfahan that began in late December 2025 and continued into January 2026; charges included moharebeh (waging war against God), "creating insecurity" and "inciting violent acts". The Supreme Court upheld the sentence; Iranian authorities did not disclose the execution location.

Hengaw is the Kurdistan Human Rights Network's Norway-registered NGO, founded in 2017, and one of the principal external trackers of detentions and executions inside Iran. Its eight-since-the-war count groups protest-related and political-prisoner executions together rather than the broader Iranian execution rate, which has run far higher across recent years. The metric is wartime political-prisoner executions specifically, the population external trackers most often read as a domestic-stability signal for the Iranian government.

Kiani is a separate Isfahan-protest case from the three Ali Fahim co-defendants (Shahab Zahdi, Abolfazl Salehi Siavoshani, Yaser Rajaeifar) flagged for imminent execution by Hengaw on 24 April . Both files sit on the security apparatus's docket on the same weekend the diplomatic track collapsed in Islamabad and OFAC produced two designation rounds in Washington. Iran's domestic security apparatus has run on its own cadence through every break in the diplomatic track since the war began.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Since protests erupted in Iran in late 2025, the government has been using the criminal justice system to punish people who joined street demonstrations. The charge most commonly used is 'moharebeh', an Islamic legal concept meaning 'enmity towards God'. In practice, courts apply it to people who participated in protests that turned violent, or who were accused of involvement in attacks on security forces. Hengaw, a Norwegian human rights organisation that monitors Iran, has counted eight protest-related executions since the US-Iran war began in February 2026. Each person was arrested during the protest wave, put through a military-style court process, and executed, in most cases secretly and without their families being notified first. The pattern matters because the government is using the cover of war to accelerate the judicial response to the protest movement. International attention is concentrated on the military conflict, reducing the diplomatic cost of each execution.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Iran's Supreme Court issued a 'maximum decisiveness' directive in late February 2026, immediately after US strikes began, authorising fast-track review of protest-era cases on the grounds that judicial delay in wartime undermines state authority. Multiple documented cases, including Kiani's, have moved from final appeal to execution in under 90 days under this directive, against the normal timeline of 12-18 months.

Iran's nationwide internet blackout has been running continuously since early February 2026, exceeding 1,200 hours. The blackout does not simply prevent Iranians from communicating: it prevents human rights organisations from receiving timely information about executions.

Hengaw documented Kiani's execution through its on-the-ground contact network, but confirmation came hours after the fact. Families cannot mobilise international attention in time to create pressure before a sentence is carried out.

What could happen next?

Risk
Three remaining Ali Fahim case co-defendants (Zahdi, Siavoshani, Rajaeifar) at Ghezel Hesar face imminent execution; Hengaw's track record of advance warning on this case suggests a further execution within 72 hours is the base case.
Consequence
The wartime moharebeh expansion, if not reversed after the war ends, creates a permanent legal precedent for applying the charge to non-violent protest participants, restructuring the charge's scope for future use.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources from Iran

Iran

Primary parallel: The summer 1988 mass executions, in which Iran killed an estimated 4,000-5,000 political prisoners over several weeks following Khomeini's fatwa, provide the most direct structural precedent for wartime judicial acceleration.

The 1988 cases were also moharebeh-based and targeted members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq and Tudeh Party held in post-revolution prisons. The key mechanism in both 1988 and 2026 is the same: a three-person 'Death Commission' (amniyat, judge, and prosecutor) reviewing cases without defence participation, under wartime conditions that suspend normal due process constraints.

Counter-parallel: The 2022-2023 Mahsa Amini protest executions (Mohammadreza Shoorangiz and others) showed that Iran would execute protest participants during a period of international pressure, but at a rate of one to two per month rather than the current accelerated pace.

The 2022-2023 cases drew sustained international condemnation and sanctions; the 2026 cases are occurring with international attention focused on the military conflict, reducing the diplomatic cost of each individual execution.

Consensus view: Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) executive director Hadi Ghaemi and Amnesty International Iran researcher Diana Eltahawy have both documented the wartime expansion of moharebeh charges: before February 2026, the charge was applied primarily to armed group members (Mojahedin-e Khalq affiliates, Kurdish separatists).

Since the war, it has been applied to protest participants with no weapons and no organised group membership. The Supreme Court has fast-tracked these cases, compressing the normal appeal timeline from 12-18 months to under six months in multiple documented instances.

Counter-view: Iran Human Rights (IHR, Oslo-based) researcher Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam notes that the eight wartime political executions are distinct from the broader Q1 2026 execution rate, which Hengaw puts at over 160 across all categories.

The moharebeh expansion is real, but the war is not the primary driver of Iran's execution rate: Iran executed 901 people in 2023, predominantly for drug offences. The wartime political executions are a visible subset of a pre-existing system operating at scale.

Key tension: Whether the wartime moharebeh expansion represents a structural shift in the charge's application (protest participation = enmity towards God in wartime), or whether it is an acceleration of pre-existing practice that will normalise once the war ends.

First Reported In

Update #79 · Islamabad 3 collapses; Witkoff grounded, talks stall

Hengaw Organization for Human Rights· 25 Apr 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Three Ali Fahim co-defendants face execution

Kiani execution is the eighth wartime political execution, a new development in the pattern of executions flagged by Hengaw in update #78

Occurred 24 Apr 2026

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This Event

Iran executes Erfan Kiani, eighth wartime hanging

The domestic security apparatus is running independently of the diplomatic track, and Hengaw flagged three further imminent executions on 24 April.

Led to

Iran executes Shirzadi Fakhr at dawn

The execution of Shirzadi Fakhr on 23 April follows the execution of Erfan Kiani on moharebeh charges on 25 April (ID:2781), extending Iran's wartime execution record with a new Israel-collaboration charge category.

Occurred 23 Apr 2026

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Yazd execution; three Ali Fahim defendants in solitary

Erfan Kiani's moharebeh execution at Ghezel Hesar on 25 April (ID:2781) establishes the institutional pattern continued by the Fakhrabadi execution and the three surviving co-defendants

Occurred 27 Apr 2026

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Different Perspectives

Oil markets

Brent fell $1.05 to $106.0 on summit Day 1 but remains $5-7 above the post-ceasefire equilibrium analysts modelled in March; the market is pricing a holding pattern, not a breakthrough. OilPrice.com and Aramco CEO Nasser converge on buffer-exhaustion before Hormuz reopens if the blockade extends past mid-June.

Iranian dissidents and human rights monitors

Hengaw documented a five-prison simultaneous execution cluster on 13 May, with Gorgan appearing for the first time in the wartime register. Espionage charges framed as Israel-linked moharebeh now extend across Mashhad, Karaj, and Gorgan, using the war as judicial cover for protest-era detainees.

BRICS / Global South

Araghchi's Delhi appearance positioned Iran as a victim of US aggression before non-Western foreign ministers, with Deputy FM Bagheri Kani calling on BRICS to act against US aggression. India, as the largest non-Chinese user of Iranian-routed crude, faces pressure to balance bloc solidarity against its own shipping and sanctions exposure.

China

Beijing accepted the Nvidia chip clearance on summit Day 1 and gave Rubio verbal acknowledgement of Iran as an Asian stability concern, having already put Pakistan on paper as the mediatory channel on 13 May (ID:3253), deflecting the US ask for direct Chinese action without refusing it.

Iran (government and civilian diplomatic track)

Araghchi denied any Hormuz obstruction at BRICS Delhi on 14 May while Iran's SNSC had finalised a Hormuz security plan the day before. Israel Hayom's single-sourced 15-year freeze offer gives Tehran a deployable figure in non-Western forums regardless of corroboration; the state attributed 3,468 wartime deaths with no independent verification.

United States (Trump administration and Senate moderates)

Trump signed a chip clearance for 10 Chinese firms on summit Day 1 and zero Iran instruments across 76 days; Rubio and Vance made verbal Iran asks without paper. Murkowski voted yes on the 49-50 war-powers resolution after Hegseth told the Senate that Article 2 makes an AUMF unnecessary.