Imagine living through a war. Streets, buildings and neighbourhoods are being bombed. You see a place reduced to ruins by a strike and take a photograph — to keep a record, to remember, or to share with others what is happening. In Iran today, that photograph can become part of a case that ends in a death sentence. This is what happened to Hassan Amiri after a photograph of a bombed site found on his phone became part of the basis for a case that led to a death sentence. Hassan and his twin brother Hossein were arrested in March 2026. They were reportedly tortured into confessing that further footage existed on a laptop they did not even own. Tried by Branch 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on charges of “collaboration with Israel”, they were sentenced to death. They remain in Ghezel Hesar Prison. Espionage for Israel was already punishable by death in Iran under a 2020 law, but the 2025 espionage law (Law on Intensification of Punishment for Espionage and Cooperation with the Zionist Regime and Hostile States Against National Security and Interests), rushed through parliament after the twelve-day war in June 2025, goes much further. It attaches the death penalty to vaguely defined ‘operational actions’, ‘intelligence activity’ and even ‘direct or indirect assistance’ deemed to benefit hostile states. It criminalises sending films, images or information to foreign media, and the possession of satellite internet devices such as Starlink. Since the beginning of 2026, at least 11 people have been executed under the espionage law, and others face imminent execution. When criminal provisions are drafted in broad and ambiguous terms, their application becomes especially dangerous in politically charged times. No emergency, no conflict, no security claim can justify putting people to death for taking photographs or sharing information. And allegations of national-security offences do not suspend the requirements of evidence, due process, fair trial and protection from torture. Together with other UN experts, I have urged the Iranian authorities to suspend this law. My mandate’s communication about Hasan and Hosein Amiri case: spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe… No response has yet been received from the Iranian authorities. My mandate’s communication on the 2025 espionage law spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe…

Mohsen Eslamkhah, a Kurd from Bukan, was 16 when the Woman, Life, Freedom protests began in 2022. Like many other young people, he took to the streets to call for freedom, dignity and change. In February 2026 a Revolutionary Court sentenced him to death for moharebeh (enmity against God) for acts alleged to have taken place when he was a child. He remains on death row. International law leaves no room here. Key treaties ratified by Iran prohibit the death penalty for offences committed under 18.  Mohsen is not alone. My mandate has received reports of others facing execution for offences allegedly committed when they were children. Four years on, many young people once again took to the streets, calling for a better future they felt was slipping away from them. Shervin Bagherian Jebeli was one of them. He had turned 18 days only days before security forces raided his home in Isfahan at night in January 2026. His family heard nothing for a week. Then State television aired his confession, recorded under interrogation, before any trial. In it, he is told he is charged with moharebeh. He does not appear to know what the word means. He was sentenced to death with 11 others in a single closed hearing, with no clarity as to what each is accused of doing. He remains on death row. The rule on children exists because young people are developing and capable of change, and that does not stop on a birthday. The death sentences against Mohsen and the others who were children at the time are prohibited outright. Shervin’s case should make us deeply uneasy: a death sentence for a boy who had been an adult for a matter of days. But his age is not the only reason he should not be executed. A week of enforced disappearance, an apparently coerced confession broadcast before trial, and a closed hearing that never said what he personally is accused of having done are each reason enough. Respecting the prohibition on executing children is the least Iranian authorities can do; halting these executions is what the authorities must do. A young person’s future should not end with a death sentence. My Mandate’s Communication on Mohsen Eslamkhah spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe… Response by the Iranian authorities spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe… My Mandate’s communication on Shervin Bagherian Jebeli spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe… Response by the government received but not published yet. It will be available here later today - spcommreports.ohchr.org/TmSe…

**به‌روزرسانی دربارهٔ بیانیهٔ مطبوعاتی دیروز** ohchr.org/en/press-releases/… مقامات جمهوری اسلامی ایران بامداد امروز دو نفر دیگر از متهمان پروندهٔ «میدان علیخانی» را در اصفهان در ملأ عام اعدام کردند. دار اعدام در میدان برپا شده بود. خانواده‌ها را برای آخرین ملاقات فراخوانده بودند. در طول شب، منطقه تحت تدابیر شدید امنیتی قرار داشت و گزارش‌هایی از درگیری میان نیروهای امنیتی و افرادی که در نزدیکی محل تجمع کرده بودند، منتشر شد. روایت‌های رسیده از داخل کشور از کسانی حکایت دارد که تمام شب را در نزدیکی میدان بیدار ماندند؛ اقدامی عمیقاً تأثیرگذار؛ آنها کنار هم ایستادند تا هیچ‌کس مرگ را در تنهایی تجربه نکند. برای بسیاری از ایرانیان، اعدام به تنها امر ثابت در زندگی‌شان تبدیل شده است؛ چیزی که حکومت آن را به امری عادی و روزمره بدل کرده است. (این گزارش را بخوانید: «من برای آن‌ها بیدار ماندم» (iranintl.com/en/202607283664 اعدام در ملأ عام مصداق رفتار و مجازاتی ظالمانه، غیرانسانی و تحقیرآمیز است. این اعدام‌ها برای هیچ‌کس عدالت به ارمغان نمی‌آورند: نه برای متهمانی که از حق برخورداری از دادرسی عادلانه محروم شده‌اند؛ نه برای چهار نیروی امنیتی که مرگ آنان هرگز در یک دادگاه علنی و مستقل مورد رسیدگی قرار نگرفته است؛ و نه برای جامعه‌ای که وادار به تماشای این صحنه‌ها می‌شود. هدف از این اعدام‌ها ایجاد رعب و وحشت و تحکیم اقتدار حکومت از طریق نمایش مرگ است؛ نمایشی که مردم، از جمله کودکان، را در معرض آسیب‌های جدی روانی قرار می‌دهد. تاکنون چهار نفر از این ۱۲ جوان به‌طور خودسرانه اعدام شده‌اند. هشت نفر دیگر همچنان در انتظار اجرای حکم هستند، و گزارش‌هایی به دست من رسیده که نشان می‌دهد شروین باقریان جبلی و سه نفر دیگر امروز آخرین ملاقات خود را با خانواده‌هایشان انجام داده‌اند؛ نشانه‌ای نگران‌کننده که حاکی از آن است که ممکن است همین فردا اعدام‌ شوند. بار دیگر درخواست خود را تکرار می‌کنم: تمامی اعدام‌ها را فوراً متوقف کنید. تا زمان لغو کامل مجازات اعدام، اجرای آن باید مشمول یک تعلیق سراسری شود.

Update on the press release from yesterday (ohchr.org/en/press-releases/…). Iranian authorities carried out the public execution of two more of the Alikhani Square defendants at dawn in Isfahan. A scaffold was erected in the square. Families were summoned for what they feared would be final visits. Through the night the area was under heavy security, with reports of confrontations between security forces and people gathered nearby. Accounts from inside the country describe those who kept watch near the square through the night — a deeply moving act, standing together so that no one would face death alone. For many Iranians, execution has become the one constant in their life, something the State authorities have made routine. (Read this story “I stayed awake for them” - iranintl.com/en/202607283664) Public executions constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. They serve justice to no one: not the accused, denied a fair trial; not the four security personnel whose deaths remain unexamined in any open court; not a society made to watch. They are designed to instil fear and to consolidate State authority through the spectacle of death, exposing the public, including children, to serious psychological harm. Four of the 12 young men have now been executed arbitrarily. Eight remain, but I have received reports that Shervin Bagherian Jebeli and three others have had a final meeting with their families, indicating they may be executed as early as tomorrow. I renew my call: halt all executions. Establish a moratorium, pending abolition.

I echo UN Human Rights High Commissioner Volker Türk's statement on Iran and join him in calling on the Iranian authorities to halt executions, release those arbitrarily detained, and restore internet access immediately. ohchr.org/en/press-releases/… The use of national security charges to silence dissent, coerced confessions as the basis for executions, and the targeting of ethnic and religious minorities are patterns I have documented throughout my mandate — and they are continuing despite the ceasefire, as fragile as it is. At least 21 executions have been announced by the State since the conflict began, but the ongoing shutdown gives me serious concern that further executions may be taking place without our knowledge. I am concerned for Narges Mohammadi, whose health is reportedly deteriorating in detention, and for Nasrin Sotoudeh, whose whereabouts remain unknown. Authorities have also reportedly seized the assets of hundreds of citizens — including 400 Iranians living abroad — labelling them 'traitors to the homeland’.The 61-day internet shutdown, the longest ever recorded, has caused severe economic losses, disrupted education and healthcare, and left people unable to access safety information during active hostilities — allowing the State to monopolise the narrative and making it impossible to grasp the full human rights situation inside the country.