Level 1 — Absolute Beginner

A court in Iran has sentenced ten people to death. This happened after big protests in January 2026 in a city called Isfahan.

Two of the ten people are women. This is the first time women have been sentenced to death for these protests. One woman's twin sister was also sent to prison for many years.

During the protests, people were killed. The government arrested sixteen people and put them on trial. Ten of them are now sentenced to death.

Human rights groups say the trials were not fair. They say the lawyers could not see all the evidence. Iran is also in a war with the United States, so this is a hard time for the country.

sentence

when a court says what punishment a person must get

protest

when people gather together to show they are angry about something

court

a place where judges decide if a person broke the law

arrest

to take a person and hold them because police think they did something wrong

trial

when a court looks at a case to decide if a person is guilty

prison

a building where people are kept as punishment

human rights

the basic freedoms every person should have, like a fair trial

evidence

facts or objects that show something is true

Level 2 — Elementary

A Revolutionary Court in the Iranian city of Isfahan has sentenced ten people to death in connection with a deadly protest that took place on January 3, 2026. That day, hundreds of protesters marched from Shohada Square, which means Martyrs' Square, toward a military base belonging to the Basij militia, a group connected to Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

Agents from the Revolutionary Guard opened fire on the crowd, and several protesters were killed instantly. Across the whole country that day, at least eleven protesters died, with the worst violence happening in the provinces of Lorestan and Ilam. A member of the Revolutionary Guard and a homeless man also died during the unrest.

Sixteen people were arrested in what became known as the Shohada Square of Isfahan case, and their trial was held in Branch 1 of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court. On August 30 and 31, 2026, the court sentenced ten of them to death, including a young woman named Taraneh Rahimi, who is only twenty years old.

Taraneh Rahimi is one of the first two women ever sentenced to death over the January 2026 protests. The other woman, Leila Abolhasani, who is forty-three, was sentenced to death in a separate case for filming a burning supermarket on her phone during the unrest. Her sentence is now being reviewed by Iran's Supreme Court. Taraneh's twin sister, Romina Rahimi, was also convicted in the same case and was sentenced to decades in prison.

militia

an armed group, often supported by a government, that is not the regular army

instantly

happening immediately, without any delay

province

a large area or region of a country, similar to a state

convict

to officially decide in court that someone is guilty of a crime

separate

not connected to something else; apart

review

to look at something again carefully to check if it was correct

unrest

a situation in which many people are angry and protesting

supreme court

the highest and most powerful court in a country

Level 3 — Intermediate

Iran's judiciary has escalated its crackdown on the January 2026 protest movement, with Branch 1 of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court sentencing ten defendants to death over a march that ended in gunfire. On January 3, 2026, hundreds of demonstrators had walked from Shohada Square toward a base belonging to the Basij, a paramilitary force tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, when IRGC agents opened fire on the unarmed crowd, killing several people on the spot. At least eleven protesters were killed nationwide that day, with the heaviest toll recorded in the provinces of Lorestan and Ilam.

The ten defendants sentenced on August 30 and 31, 2026, are Taraneh Rahimi, Navid Elyasi, Abolfazl Dadgostar, Mehdi Mansouri, Ahmadreza Saeedi, Mehrdad Boueri, Mohammad Mehdi Asadi, Armin Gholami, Parsa Jafari, and Mehdi Jafari. They were among sixteen people originally arrested and prosecuted together in what has become known as the Shohada Square of Isfahan case. Notably, an IRGC member named Abbas Kamrani and an unhoused man also died amid the unrest that day, yet the indictment against the sixteen defendants did not include any direct murder charges, and no documented evidence was presented in court linking any of them to either death.

Taraneh Rahimi, twenty years old, is one of the first two women sentenced to death in connection with the January 2026 uprising. The other, Leila Abolhasani, forty-three, received a death sentence in a separate case for filming a burning supermarket on her phone during the unrest, a sentence now under review by Iran's Supreme Court. Taraneh's twin sister, Romina Rahimi, was convicted alongside her in the same proceeding and sentenced to decades in prison, a pairing of outcomes that human rights monitors have singled out as especially stark.

Rights organizations including Amnesty International, HRANA, and Femena have condemned the proceedings as fundamentally unfair, saying defense lawyers were denied full access to case files and were not given adequate time to review the evidence against their clients. The case fits into a broader pattern Amnesty documented in July 2026, when it said Iranian authorities had already arbitrarily executed at least twenty-six people over offenses connected to the January protests, following what it described as torture-tainted, grossly unfair trials in the country's Revolutionary Courts. Thousands of people were arrested nationwide during the unrest, and Amnesty has warned that many more remain at risk of the death penalty, even as Iran continues to be consumed by its broader 2026 war and ongoing confrontation with the United States.

judiciary

the system of courts and judges in a country

crackdown

strong and sudden action taken by a government against opposition or wrongdoing

paramilitary

organized like a military force but not officially part of the regular army

indictment

a formal, written accusation that charges someone with a crime

Level 4 — Advanced

Iran's judiciary has widened the scope of its capital punishment campaign against last winter's protest movement, with Branch 1 of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court handing down death sentences to ten defendants over a demonstration that ended in bloodshed on January 3, 2026. On that day, hundreds of protesters had set out from Shohada Square, whose name translates as Martyrs' Square, marching toward a base belonging to the Basij, the paramilitary auxiliary of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. IRGC agents opened fire on the unarmed procession, killing several people instantly; at least eleven protesters died nationwide that day, with the deadliest violence concentrated in the provinces of Lorestan and Ilam.

The ten men and women sentenced on August 30 and 31, 2026, in the case that has become known as the Shohada Square of Isfahan file, are Taraneh Rahimi, Navid Elyasi, Abolfazl Dadgostar, Mehdi Mansouri, Ahmadreza Saeedi, Mehrdad Boueri, Mohammad Mehdi Asadi, Armin Gholami, Parsa Jafari, and Mehdi Jafari, ten of sixteen people originally arrested and tried together. A striking feature of the case is what it does not contain: although an IRGC member, Abbas Kamrani, and an unhoused man also died amid the unrest that day, the indictment brought no direct murder charge against any of the sixteen, and no documented evidence tying them to either death was presented at trial, a gap that rights groups say exposes the proceedings as retaliatory rather than evidentiary.

Among the condemned, Taraneh Rahimi, twenty, is one of the first two women sentenced to death over the January 2026 uprising, a grim distinction shared only with Leila Abolhasani, forty-three, whose separate death sentence for filming a burning supermarket on her phone is now before Iran's Supreme Court on review. Taraneh's twin sister, Romina Rahimi, convicted in the same proceeding, was sentenced instead to decades in prison, a divergence between two sisters tried side by side that has drawn particular attention from observers of the case.

Amnesty International, HRANA, and Femena have all condemned the trials as unfair, citing defense lawyers who were denied full access to case files and given insufficient time to review the evidence against their clients, a set of procedural failures that human rights advocates argue makes any resulting death sentence unsound on its face. The Isfahan verdicts extend a pattern Amnesty had already flagged in July 2026, when it reported that Iranian authorities had arbitrarily executed at least twenty-six people for offenses connected to the January protests following what it called torture-tainted, grossly unfair trials before Revolutionary Courts, warning that the executions form part of a deliberate campaign to punish and suppress dissent. With thousands still detained nationwide from the January unrest, Amnesty cautions that many more defendants may yet face the death penalty, a prospect unfolding against the backdrop of Iran's continuing 2026 war and its unresolved confrontation with the United States, a period of turmoil that has left the country's judiciary, by rights groups' account, increasingly willing to answer street protest with the machinery of capital punishment.