Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
Russia-Ukraine War 2026
19JUL

Two Kurds hanged on the talks day

2 min read
13:35UTC

Iran hanged Kurdish prisoners Ashkan Maleki and Mehrdad Mohammadinia at dawn on 1 June at Ghezel Hesar prison; co-defendant Arman Marefati, 38, faces imminent execution.

← Back to Fedorov sacked as the front stands stillJump to analysis ↓
ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Iran hanged two Kurdish protesters at dawn on the same day its diplomats reshaped the war.

Prison authorities hanged two Kurdish prisoners, Ashkan Maleki and Mehrdad Mohammadinia, at dawn on Monday 1 June inside Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj, the same day Iran suspended talks with Washington 1. Both were arrested during the January 2026 protests and sentenced on moharebeh charges, an Iranian capital offence meaning "waging war against God". Families were denied a final visit and the bodies were withheld. Their co-defendant Arman Marefati, 38, from Saqqez, remains at imminent risk in the Great Tehran Penitentiary.

The Hengaw rights monitor, a Norway-based Kurdish group, counts at least 36 politically motivated executions since the war began on 28 February, with 78 dissidents on death row 2. The moharebeh charge requires no proven act of violence, only a court finding of waging war against God, which is why protest arrests convert to death sentences so quickly.

Iran's Revolutionary Courts answer to the judiciary chief, not the negotiators, so the gallows tempo runs uncorrelated with the diplomatic calendar by design . The phone call that halted Beirut reached Jerusalem in minutes; it never reached a cell in Karaj.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Moharebeh is a charge used in Iran's Islamic law system meaning 'waging war against God'. It carries the death penalty and has been applied to protest participants, particularly from ethnic minority communities like Kurds. Ashkan Maleki and Mehrdad Mohammadinia were arrested during protests in January 2026, convicted on this charge, and hanged at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, a city west of Tehran that houses one of Iran's largest prison complexes. Hengaw is a Norwegian-registered organisation staffed by Kurds monitoring human rights conditions inside Iran. It is the principal independent source for documenting wartime executions; Iran's government does not publish this information. The 36 executions Hengaw has tallied since 28 February include protesters, political dissidents, and people convicted of working with foreign intelligence services. Arman Marefati, the third man convicted in the same case as Maleki and Mohammadinia, has been moved to the Great Tehran Penitentiary. Transfers to that facility typically precede imminent execution in Hengaw's documented cases.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The moharebeh charge applied to Kurdish protest participants is not a wartime improvisation: it draws on a Revolutionary Court precedent established during the 1979-80 Kurdish insurgency, when the charge was first used against Sunni Kurdish fighters opposing the new Islamic Republic.

The IRGC's security courts have jurisdiction over cases categorised as national security threats, which means ordinary criminal-procedure protections such as open hearings, right of appeal and independent defence counsel are procedurally excluded.

The wartime acceleration in executions serves a secondary function the Hengaw data reflects: with the internet blackout limiting organised protest, the security system is eliminating the core of the January 2026 activist networks before any ceasefire or reconstruction phase creates space for renewed civil society organising. At 78 people on death row from the January protests alone, the pipeline is calibrated to outlast the ceasefire talks.

What could happen next?
  • Risk

    Arman Marefati's transfer to the Great Tehran Penitentiary places him within the documented high-risk execution pipeline. International pressure from the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran is the only near-term mechanism that has produced delays in individual cases; no formal government has intervened.

  • Consequence

    Any ceasefire or normalisation process that does not include a prisoners-and-executions clause will produce an Iran that exits the war with a decimated Kurdish political activist base and no accountability mechanism for wartime judicial killings.

Sources:ABC News
Mentions:Iran →Qezel Hesar Prison →Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) →Mahsa Amini protests →Karaj →Iraq →Beirut →Iran-Iraq War →Tehran →Mahsa Amini →Norway →Great Tehran Penitentiary →Washington →Hengaw →
First Reported In

Update #115 · Iran moves first, Trump moves by phone

ABC News· 2 Jun 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
Caused by
Athlete Benyamin Naqdi sentenced to death
The 30 May death sentence for Benyamin Naqdi set the ongoing wartime execution pace that produced the 1 June Ghezel Hesar executions.
Occurred 30 May 2026
Read story →
Iran's killing moves to the field
The extrajudicial killing of Kurdish activists Meysam and Mojtaba Veisi near Dalahu on 28 May preceded and contextualises the 1 June Kurdish executions at Ghezel Hesar.
Occurred 28 May 2026
Read story →
This Event
Two Kurds hanged on the talks day
Iran's courts ran at wartime tempo on the same day its diplomats reshaped the war by phone, showing the security state moves independently of the negotiating calendar.
Different Perspectives
The United Kingdom
The United Kingdom
Starmer pledged £300 million in Kyiv on 16 July toward Ukraine's Gripen E squadron, adding to the PURL expansion Trump and Rutte had announced two days earlier. London is paying into a scheme built around a shortfall NATO's own published $4bn-plus pledge does not close against Zelenskyy's roughly $15bn stated need.
Brussels
Brussels
The EU's 21st sanctions package missed its Coreper vote on 15 July over Greek LNG re-export rights and an Austrian bank compensation demand, the same week Hungary stalled accession clusters on procedure rather than veto. Both processes run on unanimity, so a single national interest, not Russia policy, sets the pace either can move at.
Hungary's Tisza government
Hungary's Tisza government
Budapest refused to open EU accession Clusters 2 and 3 for Ukraine at COELA on 17 July, offering Moldova a standalone opening instead, and the question returns on 22 July. Having ended Orbán's blanket loan veto in May, it now blocks the narrower rule-of-law chapters where its own electorate is least comfortable.
Washington
Washington
Trump and Rutte expanded PURL on 14 July, letting allies fund the American interceptors and jets Washington will license but no longer gift outright. The same week, Lockheed Martin told allies it cannot guarantee PAC-3 MSE delivery timelines even after tripling output, so Washington now shapes Ukraine's air defence through a supply queue rather than a donation decision.
Moscow
Moscow
Novak ordered a study into cutting the diesel exchange quota to 10% within a week of his export ban, while June delivered Russia's first budget surplus of 2026 and National Wealth Fund liquidity above its own May forecast. Its own investors disagree: the Moscow Exchange has fallen for its longest losing streak since 1997.
Ukraine's government and its street protesters
Ukraine's government and its street protesters
Zelenskyy sacked Fedorov on 15 July, installed an acting SBU officer in his place, and did not move against three days of protest that followed across eight cities. He is betting that visible tolerance for dissent, timed to EU accession hearings on rule of law, outweighs whatever command dispute forced the reshuffle.