Iran executed three men by hanging in the city of Qom on March 19, 2026, marking the first executions carried out in connection with the nationwide protests that erupted in late December 2025. Among those put to death was Saleh Mohammadi, a 19-year-old competitive wrestler who had turned 19 just eight days before his execution, according to Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), a Norway-based monitoring group.
Mohammadi was executed alongside Mehdi Ghasemi and Saeed Davoudi. The three men were convicted of moharebeh — waging war against God — a capital crime under Iran’s sharia law, according to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency, as CBS News reported. Iranian state media accused the men of participating in the killing of two police officers during protests in Qom on January 8, 2026, when demonstrations across the country reached their peak.
The case drew international condemnation in part because of Mohammadi’s age and athletic prominence. He won a bronze medal at the 2024 Saitiev Cup, an international youth freestyle wrestling tournament held in the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk, Fortune reported. Shiva Amelirad, an Iranian teacher living in Toronto, told the outlet she had spoken with Mohammadi in 2022 while he was still in high school, and that he had participated in protests that erupted when Mahsa Amini died in police custody.
Saeed Davoudi, meanwhile, was hanged the day before his 22nd birthday. According to IHRNGO, Davoudi was born on March 20, 2004. All three men were reportedly arrested in Qom on January 15, 2026, and convicted in early February — a timeline that human rights organizations described as alarmingly swift.
Amnesty International stated that Mohammadi was denied adequate defense and forced to make confessions in fast-tracked proceedings that bore no resemblance to a meaningful trial. The organization reported in a February 19 open letter to Iran’s judiciary that Mohammadi was beaten during detention and had one of his hands broken, according to Israel Hayom. Mohammadi denied the charges against him in court and retracted his confessions, claiming they were extracted under torture.
Iran Human Rights echoed those concerns, saying the three men were sentenced to death following an unfair trial based on confessions obtained under torture. Iranian legal affairs monitor Dadban stated the men were deprived of effective access to independent counsel and the right to defense.
The executions came amid a broader crackdown that has staggered rights monitors. IHRNGO director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said his organization documented at least 27 death sentences issued against people arrested during the protests prior to an internet shutdown on February 28. He added that an additional 100 detainees face charges carrying the death penalty, and that Iranian state media have aired hundreds of forced confessions to capital offenses.
The scale of the repression has been vast. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) recorded more than 7,000 killings during the crackdown, with the vast majority being protesters, Euronews reported. Approximately 53,777 people were detained in connection with the protests as of February 23, 2026, according to HRANA, while IHRNGO placed the arrest figure at around 40,000 as of January 29, as ITV News reported.
Iran already ranks among the world’s most prolific executioners. Iran Human Rights reported that the country hanged at least 1,500 people in 2025, placing it second only to China according to rights groups.
The hangings in Qom followed another high-profile execution just one day earlier. On March 18, Iran executed Kourosh Keyvani, a dual Iranian-Swedish national whom state media described as a spy for Israel’s Mossad, CNN reported. Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard confirmed a Swedish citizen had been executed, calling the death penalty inhuman, cruel, and irreversible, and said Sweden had raised the case with Iranian representatives since Keyvani’s arrest in June 2025.
The White House responded to the protest-linked executions on the night of March 19. Spokesperson Olivia Wales issued a statement to CBS News referring to the Iranian government as “the Iranian terrorist regime.”
For rights organizations, the executions represent a grim escalation — a signal that Tehran intends to use the death penalty as a tool to crush dissent. With dozens more death sentences already handed down and hundreds of forced confessions broadcast on state television, advocates warn the worst may be yet to come.
