Iran is preparing to execute more protesters after a teen was put to death, as the regime scrambles to clamp down on political dissent.
Eighteen-year-old Amirhossein Hatami was among seven protesters and dissidents who human rights group Amnesty International had warned were at risk of imminent execution after four men were hanged in secret earlier this week.
The teen had been ‘subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in detention, before being convicted in grossly unfair trials that relied on forced confessions,’ the group claimed.
He was found guilty of entering a restricted military site in Tehran, damaging and setting fire to the facility and attempting to seize weapons and ammunition.
Amnesty International has warned that four other protesters sentenced in the same case – Mohammad Amin Biglari, Ali Fahim, Abolfazl Salehi Siavashani and Shahin Vahedparast Kolo – will be executed soon, one each day.
The two dissidents, Vahid Bani Amerian and Abolhassan Montazer, also remain at imminent risk since their transfer to an undisclosed location on 30 March.
Hatami’s execution comes just days after four top anti-regime figures were killed, while another 15 political prisoners have been sentenced to death in recent days.
Rights groups are becoming increasingly concerned that Tehran is intensifying executions against political detainees and protesters amid mounting military and international pressure.
Teen protester Amirhossein Hatami has been executed in Iran
Boxer Saleh Mohammadi, Mehdi Ghasemi and Saeed Davodi in footage of the trial published by Iranian state media, were executed in March
Families and residents gather at the Kahrizak Coroner’s Office, confronting rows of body bags as they search for relatives killed during the regime’s violent crackdown on protests in January
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a political coalition formed by exiled dissidents, warned of a potential upcoming ‘massacre’ in the country’s prisons as rattled leaders attempt to crush any notion of another mass uprising.
The brutal new clampdown comes as the US and Israel continue to hammer the country with bombs.
It also comes weeks after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – who oversaw the slaughter of tens of thousands of rioters in January – was wiped out in an airstrike, leaving his son Mojtaba in charge.
During a briefing on Wednesday, the NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Mohammad Mohaddessin said Mr Mohaddessin warned that the killings of Pouya Ghobadi, Babak Alipour, Mohammad Taghavi Sangdehi and Ali Akbar Daneshvarkar – all members of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran who were killed this week- were the product of the regime trying to ‘exert control.’
‘These executions were not only the taking of four lives, but they were also a message from the regime,’ Mr Mohaddessin said.
‘Why were they executed now? During a very hard external war? Because the regime leadership is extremely concerned about the domestic situation and the possibility of another uprising,’ he said.
‘The regime wants these executions to intimidate, to send a warning.’
Mr Mohaddessin added that scores of prisoners are still at risk of execution and said that a court in Iran has already confirmed the death sentences of 15 other members of the PMOI.
He also warned that the world was witnessing a ‘prelude to a massacre of political prisoners, similar to 1988, when the regime, facing the consequences of its defeat in war with Iraq, carried out mass executions in which 30,000 political prisoners were executed.’
Citing Iranian dissident politician Maryam Rajavi, he added that Tehran’s executions reflect the regime’s ‘fear and desperation’ in the face of an enraged population and growing support for the Resistance Units and the Liberation Army.
‘Carrying out such executions amid an external war is a clear admission that the regime’s principal enemy is the Iranian people and their Resistance.
‘Although the regime seeks to exploit external war to mask its deep and unresolved internal crises, it cannot escape its inevitable overthrow by the people and the Resistance,’ he added.
He also urged the international community to take effective measures to halt executions in Iran.
Iranian police special forces stand guard during a funeral procession for Alireza Tangsiri, head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, and others killed in Israeli strikes in late March, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, April 1, 2026
Babak Alipour was among a group of four men executed in secret this week in Iran
Pictured: Mohammad Taghavi Sangdehi
The NCRI’s warnings come following the hangings of political prisoners Pouya Ghobadi and Babak Alipour on Tuesday.
Their deaths came a day after the deaths of Mohammad Taghavi Sangdehi and Ali Akbar Daneshvarkar.
All four were political prisoners belonging to PMOI and had been sentenced to death over two years ago.
According to NGO Iran Human Rights, their executions were carried out in secret, without their families being notified in advance.
Last month, Iran executed three men convicted of killing two police officers during the January protests.
Champion wrestler Saleh Mohammadi, 19, was reportedly killed in a public hanging along with Mehdi Ghasemi and Saeed Davoudi in the city of Qom.
Mohammadi was sentenced to death in February, less than three weeks after his arrest, over the murder of a security agent during the anti-regime protests on January 8, according to Amnesty International.
He denied the accusation and claimed his earlier confessions had been extracted under torture. But the court dismissed his claims without any investigation.
Ali Akbar Daneshvarkar, who was also executed this week, was a member of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran
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Iran unleashes new execution spree with battered regime ‘fearful of another uprising’
Ghasemi was accused of participating in the killing along with Davoudi, who was also accused of murdering another policeman on the same day.
Their deaths, which marked the first official executions related to the protests which began last year, were reported by the judiciary’s Mizan Online new agency.
The individuals were involved in the killing of two law enforcement personnel, Mizan said, adding that their execution was carried out after they were found guilty of the capital offence of ‘moharebeh’, or ‘waging war against God’.
Iran Human Rights condemned the three men’s deaths, claiming they followed ‘grossly unfair trials, based on confessions extracted under torture and coercion’.
‘We consider these executions to constitute extrajudicial killings, carried out with the intent of creating terror to suppress political dissent,’ the Norway-based NGO added.
Protests broke out in Iran in late December against the rising cost of living before morphing into nationwide anti-government demonstrations that peaked on January 8 and 9.
Iranian authorities later launched a brutal crackdown on the protests claiming they had turned into ‘foreign-instigated riots’ involving killings and vandalism.
Tehran has acknowledged that more than 3,000 people died during the unrest and attributed the violence to ‘terrorist acts’.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), however, has recorded more than 7,000 killings, while warning the toll could be far higher.
The brutal crackdown also saw the deaths of more than 220 children, the agency said.
Other human rights organisations have tallied many more, and medical professionals have estimated that 30,000 could have been killed.
Pouya Ghobadi was executed this week
By late December, as protests slowly began to take hold across Iran, the regime had already carried out more than 2,200 executions in 91 cities, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
This was the highest figure in decades, signifying an unprecedented peak in brutality in Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s 36-year rule as Supreme Leader before his death.
In the aftermath of the security forces’ brutal massacre of protestors on January 8, 9 and 10, many Iranians describe a ‘sea of blood’ separating civilians from the lethal government that rules them.
The protestors arrested in the government crackdown have alleged abuse while in custody, including forced nudity, exposure to cold conditions and ‘injections with substances of unknown composition’, according to Iran International, citing a source close to a detainee in prison.
