The death sentences of Abolfazl Sepahi Badjani and Amirhossein Safari Hosseinabadi, two men arrested during the January 2026 protests, were carried out in public at Alikhani Square in Isfahan in the early hours of Tuesday, July 28, 2026. Their bodies have not yet been returned to their families.
The two men were sentenced to death in what has become known as the “Alikhani Square” case, on charges including moharebeh, efsad-e-fel-arz, membership in a “baghi” group, and destroying and setting fire to public property. The judiciary’s claims about their role in the unrest have not been independently verified.
Reports indicate that the proceedings were marked by the defendants’ lack of effective access to a lawyer, the failure to provide them with complete copies of the rulings against them, hearings conducted by video conference, and a disregard for defense evidence.
Combined with a documented pattern of torture and forced confessions in security cases, these factors raise serious concern over whether the right to a fair trial was respected.
Two other defendants in the case, Erfan Esfandiari and Golmohammad Mohammadi, were executed earlier, on July 19. Of the 15 people charged in the case, the death sentences of 14 have now been upheld by Iran’s highest judicial authority.