A wave of executions is feared in Iran after 3 young men were hanged this week

BEIRUT — A 19-year-old star wrestler and two other young men were hanged in Iran this week, raising alarm among rights groups that a wave of executions may be underway as authorities facing relentless attacks from the U.S. and Israel seek to squelch public dissent.

The three men are the first to be executed from among the tens of thousands who were arrested during a January crackdown on nationwide protests. Rights groups say more than 100 others could face death sentences.

The wrestler, Saleh Mohammadi, was hanged early Thursday morning - along with Mehdi Qasemi and Saeed Davoudi - in Qom, just south of the capital, Tehran, according to state media. They had been sentenced on charges of “moharabeh,” or “waging war against God,” for allegedly killing two police officers during protests in the city.

Amnesty International said the convictions of the three, and of others arrested during the protests, came in “grossly unfair trials” that used confessions extracted by torture.

The executions were “intended to instill fear in society and deter new protests” amid the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based group that has documented detentions.

Amiry-Moghaddam said he worries many more “executions of protesters and political prisoners may be imminent.”

At least 27 arrested during protests face death sentences

Amiry-Moghaddam said his group has documented at least 27 death sentences that have been issued against people arrested during the protests. Another 100 face charges that carry the death penalty, and Iranian state media have aired hundreds of forced confessions to crimes punishable by death, he said.

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Nationwide protests that began in late December peaked in the first week of January, prompting the deadliest crackdown by Iranian security forces since the Islamic Republic took power in 1979.

A complete death toll has been hard to gauge because of internet restrictions by authorities. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists New Agency, which relies on a network of contacts inside Iran, said it confirmed that more than 7,000 were killed and that it was investigating thousands more. It said over 50,000 were arrested in just over six weeks. The government acknowledged more than 3,000 were killed.

At the height of the protests, Iranian authorities signaled that fast trials and executions lay ahead.

At the time, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested military action might be an option to stop the deadly crackdown. But he soon announced that he learned that plans for executions were halted, signaling that a military operation was no longer on the table.

Just a month later, Israel and the U.S. launched an intense airstrike campaign against Iran, pounding military installations and targeting the top political and security leadership of Iran. The security agencies believed to be responsible for the deadly crackdown on protesters are also being targeted.

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War has not stopped Iran’s crackdown on dissent

Despite the war, Iranian authorities have kept up the crackdown on dissent. Authorities say scores have been detained since the war began on Feb. 28, including some who took part in the January protests.

Because of Iran’s internet blackout, there have been scant details about the three men executed Thursday. Amiry-Moghaddam said Davoudi was born on March 20, 2004, meaning he was executed a day before his 22nd birthday. Qasemi’s age was not known, he said.

Mohammadi appeared to be a standout in wrestling, a sport that is wildly popular in Iran. In 2024, he won a bronze medal at an international youth freestyle wrestling tournament in the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk.

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On his Instagram account, Mohammadi posted photos and videos of his matches and his workouts, along with inspirational “no-pain-no-gain” messages. In his last post in late December, he posted a video of himself in the gym and wrote: “We endured beyond our imagination. Back again #bodybuilding #training #wrestling.”

“He was full of energy,” said Shiva Amelirad, an Iranian teacher living in Toronto who spoke with Mohammadi in 2022 while he was still in high school.

Amelirad said Mohammadi had participated in anti-government protests that erupted earlier that year when Mahsa Amini died in police custody after being detained for not wearing her headscarf properly. Those demonstrations were also met with a heavy crackdown by authorities.

She said Mohammadi told her that workouts and eating ice cream were his only ways “to forget all this catastrophe that we are facing.”

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“He always tried to show that he was happy,” said Amelirad.

Rights groups say theocracy has forced confessions from protesters

Mohammadi, Qasemi and Davoudi were arrested in Qom on Jan. 15, according to multiple human rights groups. The circumstances of their arrests are not known, and it is not clear if they knew each other beforehand.

They were charged in the killing of a police officer on Jan. 8 and convicted in early February, according to Amnesty and Iran Human Rights.

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During his detention, Mohammadi was beaten and one of his hands broken, Amnesty said in a Feb. 19 open letter to Iran’s judiciary criticizing the prosecution of dozens of arrested protesters. Amnesty said Mohammadi denied the charges and retracted his confessions in court, saying they were extracted under torture.

“Authorities have systematically subjected those arrested in connection to the protests to enforced disappearance, incommunicado detention, torture to extract forced ‘confessions,’” Amnesty said in the letter.

Mizan, the Iranian judiciary’s official news agency, announced the execution of the three on Thursday, showing video of them sitting in prison uniforms in court. It said they had confessed to killing two police officers with “knives and swords,” and showed video of them allegedly reenacting the killings for judicial officials.

Amiry-Moghaddam, of Iran Human Rights, said the Islamic Republic is struggling for its survival “and is well aware that the main threat to its existence comes not from external actors, but from the Iranian people demanding fundamental change.”