The Islamic Republic of Iran executed four men, two of them teenagers at the time of their arrest, over a span of five days in early April, hanging them after convictions tied to a January crackdown on protesters in Tehran. The killings drew sharp condemnation from human rights monitors and unfolded against the backdrop of an escalating confrontation between Washington and Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz.
Mohammad Amin Biglari, a 19-year-old computer science student, and Shahin Vahedparast Kolor, 30, were hanged on April 5, Fox News Digital reported, citing Iran Human Rights. The Mizan news outlet, the judiciary's own media arm, confirmed that the two had been convicted of trying to storm a military facility and access an armory in January.
They were not the first, or the last, to die.
Three days before Biglari and Kolor were hanged, 18-year-old Amirhossein Hatami was executed on April 2. Iran Human Rights cited the Mizan News Agency as its source for that hanging. Then, one day after the April 5 executions, 23-year-old Ali Fahim was put to death on April 6. The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights noted on Monday that Mizan had confirmed Fahim's killing as well.
All four men had been arrested on January 8 amid what the Hengaw Organization described as a crackdown against protesters in Tehran, the nation's capital. The Hengaw Organization reported that Biglari and Kolor were swept up alongside several other individuals that day. The charges they faced included "enmity against God (moharebeh), corruption on earth, arson of public facilities, and assembly and collusion to commit crimes against national security."
Those charges, drawn from Iran's theocratic legal code, carry the death penalty. The regime wasted little time converting arrests into hangings, roughly three months from detention to execution.
The speed of that timeline should alarm anyone who believes in due process. A 19-year-old student and an 18-year-old were arrested in January and dead by early April. What kind of judicial proceeding produced capital convictions in that window remains unclear. No details about the court or trial process have surfaced in available reporting.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Iran Human Rights, framed the executions as a deliberate political strategy, not an act of justice. He stated:
"These executions are part of the Islamic Republic's strategy of survival, waging war against its own people under the shadow of external conflict."
The regime, in Amiry-Moghaddam's telling, uses the gallows the way other governments use propaganda, as a tool to crush dissent and maintain control. That assessment tracks with an accelerating pattern of political executions that has drawn growing international attention.
Amiry-Moghaddam went further, calling on the international community to make the death penalty a central condition in any future negotiations with Tehran:
"The international community must respond with urgency. The situation of prisoners and the regime's systematic use of the death penalty as a political tool of repression must be made a central condition in any negotiations or engagement with the Islamic Republic."
Whether Western governments will heed that call is another matter. Diplomatic engagement with Iran has historically sidelined human rights concerns in favor of nuclear negotiations and economic calculations. The executed men, Biglari, Kolor, Hatami, Fahim, are unlikely to become household names in foreign ministries that prefer to talk about enrichment centrifuges.
The broader crackdown inside Iran has not been limited to executions. Militia groups have opened fire in the streets, and the regime's security apparatus has shown no sign of relenting against civilian dissent.
The hangings occurred during a period of intense pressure between Washington and Tehran. On Sunday, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social demanding that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz and threatening strikes on Iranian infrastructure. His post read, in part:
"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F---in' Strait, you crazy b******s, or you'll be living in H*** - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah."
That blunt ultimatum to Tehran placed the executions in a wider geopolitical frame. Amiry-Moghaddam's phrase, "under the shadow of external conflict", pointed directly at this dynamic. The regime, facing external military threats, appears to be tightening its grip internally, using capital punishment to signal that dissent will not be tolerated even as the country faces potential strikes from abroad.
Photo captions from the Fox News Digital report illustrated the physical toll of the confrontation. One showed an Iranian flag placed amid rubble and debris next to a destroyed residential building near Ferdowsi square in Tehran, dated March 3, 2026. Another captured a large plume of smoke rising over Tehran after explosions were reported in the city during the night on March 28, 2026.
Meanwhile, ceasefire talks involving Vice President Vance and envoy Witkoff have been underway, raising the question of whether any diplomatic resolution would address the regime's domestic brutality or focus narrowly on military de-escalation.
The ages of the executed men deserve emphasis. Amirhossein Hatami was 18 when he was arrested on January 8. Mohammad Amin Biglari was 19, a computer science student. These were not hardened militants. They were young men caught up in a protest movement in their own capital city, charged under a legal framework that treats political dissent as a capital offense.
The charge of "moharebeh", enmity against God, is a catch-all that the Islamic Republic has wielded against protesters for decades. It transforms political opposition into a theological crime punishable by death. The charge of "assembly and collusion to commit crimes against national security" similarly criminalizes the basic act of collective protest.
Iranian student Mooné Rahimi joined Fox & Friends Weekend to detail arrests and warn that the regime is using executions to stifle protests. Her appearance underscored what the numbers already show: the Islamic Republic treats its own citizens, including its youngest adults, as enemies of the state when they challenge the ruling order.
The Iranian regime has admitted to the deaths of thousands in ongoing protests, a figure that puts the four April executions in a grim but broader context of systematic repression.
Several critical questions remain unanswered. What specific military facility and armory were the men allegedly trying to storm? What court conducted the proceedings, and were the defendants given meaningful legal representation? How many of the "several other individuals" arrested alongside Biglari and Kolor on January 8 remain in custody, and how many face the same fate?
The Hengaw Organization and Iran Human Rights have provided the most detailed public accounting of these cases. The Iranian judiciary's own outlet, Mizan, confirmed the executions but offered no transparency about the legal process that produced them. That silence speaks for itself.
The regime hangs its young, calls it justice, and dares the world to object. So far, the world has mostly obliged with silence.
