The Islamic Republic executed Javad Zamani and Abolfazl Saedi, two men arrested during the January protests in Shahrud, early Tuesday, the judiciary-affiliated Mizan news agency reported.
Mizan described the two men as “enemy foot soldiers” and “armed leaders of the January coup” in Shahrud, saying protesters had created what it called the pretext and conditions for hostile action by Iran’s enemies.
Mohammad-Sadegh Akbari, the head of the judiciary in Semnan province, accused Zamani and Saedi of taking part in unrest, damaging bank branches, creating disorder outside the governor’s office, overturning and burning a police vehicle, and attacking homes and cars.
Mizan said the charges against them also included inciting people to attend protests, assembly and collusion against domestic and foreign security, moharebeh, or “waging war against God,” and “corruption on earth.”
Officials and state media in Iran have repeatedly sought to discredit anti-government protests by labeling them “riots,” “unrest” or a “coup” and linking them to foreign actors, including the United States and Israel.
Mizan also published a 50-second video it described as the men’s confessions, with their faces blurred.
Rights groups and former detainees have repeatedly reported the use of forced confessions under pressure, torture and harsh detention conditions in the Islamic Republic’s prisons.
Iran has sharply increased executions in recent months, including political prisoners accused of taking part in the January protests or facing espionage-related charges.
In early June, the Islamic Republic executed Mehrdad Mohammadinia and Ashkan Maleki, two January protesters, over allegations that they set fire to a mosque in Tehran.
Soleimani Ardestani, a religious scholar, former Mofid University professor and member of a reformist association of Qom seminary teachers and researchers, is being held in Qom’s prison.
According to Mojtaba Lotfi, an official from the office of the late dissident cleric Hossein Ali Montazeri, the court convicted him on all eight charges brought against him.
Lotfi said Soleimani Ardestani does not plan to appeal unless the court agrees to hold a public hearing.
In a letter from prison, Soleimani Ardestani said the charges against him included disturbing public opinion, insulting sacred values, insulting the leadership in relation to Ali Khamenei and his son Mojtaba, taking part in a gathering over the house arrest of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and assembly and collusion against domestic security.
Mousavi, a former prime minister, has been under house arrest since 2011 after rejecting the official result of Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election and becoming one of the symbols of the Green Movement protests.
Soleimani Ardestani also listed accusations such as propaganda against the system, spreading falsehoods online, insulting senior religious authorities, damaging the dignity of the clergy and “mind control and psychological suggestion” – a striking charge even by the standards of Iran’s broad political indictments.
He has called the indictment weak and baseless, criticized his arrest and solitary confinement, and said he wrote his defense not to seek acquittal but to leave a record for history.
The case began with remarks in a debate with pro-government cleric Hamed Kashani. Soleimani Ardestani questioned long-promoted Shiite accounts about the death of Fatemeh Zahra, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammed and wife of Ali, the first Shiite Imam.
In Iran, the story of Fatemeh’s martyrdom is not only a religious narrative but part of a vast state-backed culture of mourning, ritual and political identity.
Soleimani Ardestani argued that if Ali had merely watched his wife being attacked and had not intervened, then the traditional account would raise questions about his justice. He later said he had not insulted Fatemeh and was challenging what he called the “stories told by religious singers or eulogists (maddahs).”
He also questioned mourning ceremonies for Muhammad Taqi, the ninth Shiite Imam, saying his death was linked to jealousy by his wife after he remarried and that mourning the event 1,300 years later was meaningless.
The backlash was immediate. Pro-government eulogists, who play an influential role in mobilizing religious crowds, attacked him with vulgar and sexist language. Reports also emerged of a group attack on his home.
Hardline figures called for prosecution and defrocking, while some religious voices went further, suggesting that denial of Fatemeh’s martyrdom could amount to leaving Shiite doctrine.
The controversy also split parts of the political middle ground. Reformist figures criticized Soleimani Ardestani’s tone and timing, while others warned that violent threats, home attacks and denunciations violated freedom of belief.
The sentence is significant because it shows how quickly the Islamic Republic can convert a dispute over religious history into a security case.
Soleimani Ardestani was not an outside critic of clerical rule. He was a cleric from inside the seminary world, which makes his challenge more sensitive.
By sentencing him to prison and stripping him of clerical status, the system is not only punishing one man. It is policing the boundaries of who is allowed to interpret religion, how far internal debate can go, and what happens when religious scholarship collides with the political theology of the state.
The platform, called IranSync, synchronizes the screens of mobile phones held by spectators to create large coordinated images and messages across sections of a stadium, Salar Gholami told Iran International.
“We created a system that allows people to display unified images and messages without bringing physical banners or flags into the stadium,” Gholami said.
According to Gholami, users do not need to install an application and can access the service through the IranSync website. After participants register, the system generates a design based on the number of people taking part, allowing neighboring phone screens to form a larger image.
Gholami said the platform can be used to display the Lion and Sun flag as well as slogans including “Free Iran,” “Reza Pahlavi,” and “Regime Change for Iran.”
Alternatives after FIFA restrictions
The launch follows efforts by some members of the Iranian diaspora, particularly in the United States, to challenge FIFA’s decision to bar the Lion and Sun flag from World Cup venues and to find alternative ways of displaying the symbol during matches.
Gholami said the project aims to attract international media attention to developments in Iran and prevent the issue from being overshadowed by coverage of the World Cup.
“The presence of international media at the World Cup creates an opportunity to amplify the demands of protesters and bring the voice of the Iranian people to a global audience,” he said.
The 2026 World Cup will be hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, with Iran’s matches scheduled to take place in the United States.
Gholami argued that supporters of the Islamic Republic could seek to use the tournament to improve the regime’s international image, adding that Iranian communities abroad should organize their own visibility campaigns.
During the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the Islamic Republic sought to prevent the voices of protesters in the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising from being heard in stadiums by sending large numbers of its supporters to the country.
The United States has issued visas to Iran's national football team players and coaching staff, but some members of the delegation have not been granted entry permits.
