Attempt to stop executions exposes simmering unrest in Iran

As Iran intensifies its crackdown on dissent following January's nationwide unrest, a rare act of public defiance unfolded in the central city of Isfahan, where residents gathered before dawn in a failed attempt to stop the public execution of two protesters.

The executions of Abolfazl Sepahi Badjani and Amirhossein Safari Hosseinabadi took place in Alikhani Square early on Tuesday, marking Iran's first recorded public hangings of 2026, according to the rights group Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO).

Iran's judiciary said the two men had been convicted of membership in groups acting against national security, "enmity against God", "corruption on Earth", and involvement in the killing of four police officers during the January uprising, according to the judiciary-affiliated Mizan News Agency.

But it was the public response that drew particular attention.

According to the New York-based Centre for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), videos showing gallows being erected prompted residents to gather overnight in an attempt to prevent the executions.

"At dawn, immediately after the morning call to prayer, when executions are typically carried out, witnesses said security forces violently dispersed the crowd before publicly hanging the two young men," the organisation told The New Arab.

IHRNGO said the executions were carried out at around 3:40am local time and that security forces arrested several people after dispersing the gathering.

The demonstration offered a rare glimpse of continued public resistance months after Iran violently suppressed the country's largest wave of unrest since the 1979 revolution.

"The protests against the executions in Isfahan are highly significant. The authorities have made clear that they are willing to kill people for protesting, meaning those who took to the streets were risking their own lives," Bahar Ghandehari, CHRI's director of advocacy, told The New Arab.

"The protests on Tuesday clearly demonstrate that the relative calm on Iran's streets since the January massacre, and amid the war, should not be mistaken for reconciliation with the government," she added.

Rights groups say Iran has increasingly relied on executions in the months since the January protests in an effort to deter further unrest.

Amnesty International's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Heba Morayef, has accused the authorities of "unleashing a horrifying wave of executions and death sentences to punish and suppress dissent and project an image of strength and absolute control".

According to rights groups, at least 26 people have been executed this year in connection with the January protests, while hundreds of others have been put to death on drug-related and other criminal charges.

Among those executed were Erfan Esfandiari and Col-Mohammad Mohammadi, who were convicted over the same incident in Isfahan. Rights groups say at least eight more defendants linked to the case remain at imminent risk of execution.

Farzan Sabet, an Iran expert at the Geneva Graduate Institute, said the authorities increasingly viewed executions as both a means of social control and political intimidation.

"The government uses executions as a blunt instrument to deal with social problems, as well as a tool of terror to suppress widespread political dissent," he told The New Arab. "The protests in Isfahan illustrate the ongoing defiance of the population, despite the difficult conditions they face."

Sabet said another nationwide uprising was unlikely in the immediate future but argued Iran had entered a pattern of recurring unrest, with major protest movements emerging roughly every two years since 2017-18.

"Absent a dramatic change of conditions in the country - much improved economy, fewer social restrictions, stabilised security situation - a new window for large-scale popular unrest will eventually open," he said.