Iran executes seven prisoners, including woman subjected to forced marriage, across five prisons

Hengaw – Friday, August 28, 2026

Iranian authorities have executed at least seven prisoners, including a woman who had been subjected to forced marriage, two Gilak men and a Kurdish man, across prisons in Khorramabad, Sari, Rasht, Yazd and Isfahan. The prisoners, Arezou Rostad, Mostafa Vosoughi, Masoud Nemati, Esmaeil Ajami, Hedayat Jamalzadeh, Emad Sheikhi and Amir Danaei, had been sentenced to death in separate murder and drug-related cases.

According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Mostafa Vosoughi, a 27-year-old Kurdish man from Rivasan village in Delfan (Nurabad) County, was executed at Khorramabad Central Prison at dawn on August 26, 2026. He had been arrested three years earlier on a murder charge and subsequently sentenced to death.

On the same day, Masoud Nemati, 42, and Esmaeil Ajami, 39, were executed at Sari Central Prison. Both men, who were married and worked as bus drivers, were from Sari. They had been arrested three years earlier in the same case on drug-related charges and subsequently sentenced to death.

A day earlier, on August 25, Hedayat Jamalzadeh, a 30-year-old man from Rasht, was executed at Rasht Central Prison, also known as Lakan Prison. He had been arrested five years earlier on a murder charge and sentenced to death under Iran’s qisas (retributive justice) laws.

Also on August 25, Emad Sheikhi, a 45-year-old man from Qazvin, was executed at Yazd Central Prison after being sentenced to death on drug-related charges. He had been arrested four years earlier.

On August 24, Arezou Rostad, 23, and Amir Danaei, a 33-year-old Gilak man from Rasht, were executed at Isfahan Central Prison.

Sources familiar with the case said Rostad, from Isfahan, had been forced to marry her cousin at the age of 19. She was arrested two years ago on a charge of murdering her husband and subsequently sentenced to death under qisas laws.

Danaei had been arrested four years earlier on drug-related charges and subsequently sentenced to death. His execution was carried out without his family being notified in advance.

Iranian state media and judicial authorities have not publicly announced any of the seven executions at the time of publication.