Iran executes two protest detainees in Mashhad amid ongoing wave of executions
Hengaw – Monday, May 4, 2026
Iranian authorities have secretly executed two political prisoners, Mehdi Rasouli and Mohammadreza Miri, detained during the January 2026 protests in Mashhad.
According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Mehdi Rasouli, 25, from Kashmar, and Mohammadreza Miri, 21, from Mashhad, were executed at dawn on Sunday, May 3, 2026, in Vakilabad Prison. The execution of another protest detainee, Ebrahim Dolatabadi, was carried out on the same day.
Sources told Hengaw that both Rasouli and Miri were sentenced to death based on forced confessions obtained under torture.
The two had been tried in a joint case on charges of involvement in the killing of a Basij member during protests in Mashhad. Rasouli had told relatives prior to his execution that the only evidence against him was a video on his phone showing him assaulting a Basij member, and that he had been forced under severe physical and psychological torture to confess to murder.
Iran’s judiciary-affiliated Mizan News Agency reported the executions and described the two as “Mossad agents.”
Authorities had pressured the families in recent months with false promises of commutation in exchange for silence, preventing the case from being publicly known.
Rasouli had made a brief phone call to his family on Saturday, May 2, informing them that he had been transferred to solitary confinement for execution. The following morning, both men were executed without being granted a final visit with their families.
Their bodies were returned to their families at around 10 a.m. the same day.
Reports indicate that Rasouli’s body was buried later that day under heavy security presence in a village near Kashmar.
Hengaw condemns the secret and expedited executions, stating that the use of forced confessions and coercion of families into silence reflects a systematic pattern by Iranian authorities to carry out state-sanctioned killings. The organization calls on the international community to urgently respond to the escalating wave of executions targeting protest detainees in Iran.
