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The public execution of two protesters in Isfahan has renewed calls for the German city of Freiburg to end its 25-year twinning with the Iranian city, with activists arguing the partnership lends legitimacy to a state punishing dissent with death penalty.
The demands follow the executions of Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi in Isfahan's Alikhani Square in late July. Witnesses reported clashes between security forces and people who gathered to protest the hangings.
Freiburg, a university city in southwestern Germany, is the only municipality in the country to maintain a formal partnership with an Iranian city. Iranian activists have long argued that the arrangement, established in 2000, legitimizes the Islamic Republic despite its human rights record.
Mayor Martin Horn has rejected those arguments. Speaking to Frankfurter Rundschau in June, he said, "We as a city do not conduct foreign policy," adding that shutting the door on Isfahan would undermine engagement with ordinary Iranians.
"People are reaching out to the West, and we slam the door shut? That is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing."
‘Nothing against Isfahan’
Germany-based dissident Mina Ahadi, who led a successful international campaign against Iran's practice of public stoning, said the latest executions had fundamentally changed the debate.
"I have been protesting for a long time against this twin-city partnership between Freiburg and Isfahan because it is, in reality, a relationship with the state structures of the Islamic Republic," she told Iran International.
"I therefore support the numerous protests and demands to end this partnership—especially in light of the current tragedy in Isfahan: the public execution of two young people and the threat of the death penalty facing further individuals in this city."
Ahadi said ending the partnership would not be directed against the people of Isfahan but would instead demonstrate solidarity with Iranians confronting state repression.
"It would be a sign of support for the people in Iran, who themselves are victims of the policies of the Islamic Republic," she said.
‘Unjustifiable’
Behrouz Asadi, spokesperson for Woman Life Freedom Germany, likewise argued that the partnership had ceased to function as a neutral cultural exchange.
"The twin-city partnership between Freiburg and Isfahan has clearly shown in recent years that it is not an apolitical cultural exchange," he said. "As long as the Islamic Republic controls the exchange, such a partnership primarily serves its propaganda and grants legitimacy to its networks—not to the people of Isfahan."
He said recent executions, alongside the imprisonment of activists and members of the Baha'i community, made it increasingly difficult to justify maintaining the relationship.
"The people of Isfahan have taken to the streets for freedom, democracy and human dignity," Asadi said. "
Many have suffered prison, torture or even death for it. It is not justifiable toward them to maintain a partnership that creates the impression that normal cultural exchange with this regime is possible."
Defense of human rights
The debate has also drawn attention to Baden-Württemberg's antisemitism commissioner, Michael Blume, whom some critics accuse of failing to challenge the Freiburg-Isfahan partnership. Blume did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Iran International.
The partnership has faced criticism before. In 2010, the German city of Weimar ended its relationship with Shiraz after Iranian officials visiting Germany refused to visit the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial.
For campaigners, however, the executions in Isfahan have raised the stakes beyond a long-running dispute over municipal diplomacy.
They argue the question is no longer whether cultural engagement remains desirable, but whether maintaining official ties with an Iranian municipality can be reconciled with a rapidly deteriorating human rights situation.
“Verbal distancing is no longer enough,” said Asadi. “Anyone who takes human rights seriously must draw consequences. That is why I demand the termination of the twin-city partnership with Isfahan.”
Türk said executions and death sentences had risen since March, with more than 100 other people facing similar charges and the death penalty.
He urged Iranian authorities to halt all executions and move towards abolishing the death penalty.
The figures come after a series of executions in recent weeks of young people detained over the January protests, some of which drew gatherings by relatives and members of the public seeking to stop the sentences from being carried out.
Protesters executed
Iranian authorities executed 20-year-old Arvin Kheirkhah at Shahroud prison on Saturday after he was sentenced to death over his involvement in the January protests, according to information obtained by Iran International.
Kheirkhah had been convicted by a Revolutionary Court on charges including moharebeh, or "waging war against God."
His family gathered outside Shahroud prison on Friday night in an effort to stop the execution, according to Iran International. In a final conversation with his family, Kheirkhah urged them not to let him be forgotten.
His execution came days after authorities hanged Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi in Isfahan's Alikhani Square.
The two were among 12 young men sentenced to death in a case stemming from the January protests in the square. Iranian authorities accused the defendants of involvement in the deaths of four security personnel as well as arson and vandalism.
People gathered around the square overnight before the executions amid a heavy deployment of security forces.
Two other defendants in the same case, Golmohammad Mohammadi and Erfan Esfandiari, were executed on July 19, bringing the number put to death in the case to four.
Others remain under death sentences
A group of UN human rights experts, led by Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, urged Tehran in late July to halt the executions of defendants in the Isfahan case.
"Sentencing 12 people to death in one hearing, in a closed courtroom and without clarity as to each defendant's individual responsibility violates established fair trial standards," the UN experts said in a statement.
They said the defendants, aged from their late teens to early twenties, had reportedly faced arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and, in some cases, ill-treatment.
The UN experts also raised concerns that convictions relied heavily on confessions broadcast on Iranian state television, while Revolutionary Court hearings were held behind closed doors and the judgments were not made public.
As executions have accelerated in recent weeks, some Iranian social media users have increasingly portrayed the pre-dawn adhan as a reminder of hangings rather than the beginning of the day’s religious observances.
The adhan is the Islamic call summoning Muslims to the five daily prayers.
Iranian regulations state that death sentences should ordinarily be carried out at sunrise unless the court specifies another time. Executions are nevertheless widely associated with the early-morning hours, when prisoners’ families and supporters often wait for news as the dawn call to prayer is broadcast.
Social media anger turns toward religious symbols
Posts criticizing Islam and religious symbols circulated across Instagram and X following the latest executions.
An Instagram user wrote that the dawn adhan had become “a symbol and reminder of the execution of this country’s youth,” adding that a call intended to invite people to worship, peace and salvation had instead become associated with taking lives.
Activist Masih Alinejad wrote after clashes outside an execution site that the dawn call to prayer had become “only a symbol of death and execution.”
Another Instagram user wrote before planned executions in Isfahan that the young prisoners were due to be hanged “to the sound of the dawn call to prayer,” adding that it now carried “only the smell of death.”
Other users went further, posting profanity directed at Islam, the Quran, Shi’ite religious figures, the adhan and the Arbaeen pilgrimage. Some wrote that they no longer associated the dawn call with prayer but with executions.
IRGC-linked campaign urges crackdown
The IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency said more than 700 people had signed a campaign on its platform by Tuesday, calling for the “maximum punishment” of those accused of “insulting Islamic sanctities online.”
Organizers cited Article 513 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code and urged judicial and security authorities to take what they described as “effective and deterrent” action.
Under Article 513, insulting Islamic sanctities is punishable by between one and five years in prison. Cases classified as sabb al-nabi, or insulting the Prophet, can carry the death penalty.
Fars said campaign supporters called for tougher enforcement against people who “deliberately insult Islamic sanctities” online and urged authorities to prosecute offenders under existing legislation.
Judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir has previously said Iran continuously monitors cyberspace through a dedicated unit within the prosecutor general’s office and urged citizens to report alleged online offenses through official channels.
The campaign adds to broader efforts by Iranian authorities to tighten oversight of online speech as criticism over the recent executions continues to spread across social media.
