Iran’s leadership recently approved pardons or reduced sentences for 2,577 prisoners. The announcement came with the usual ceremonial packaging: a religious occasion, a request from the head of the judiciary and a generous act of compassion from above.
It is an impressive number. Large enough to make headlines and perhaps create the impression that something in Iran is becoming softer.
At almost the same time, the Revolutionary Court in Isfahan sentenced ten people arrested following the January protests to death. So much for the softer side.
These ten sentences are shocking, but they are not an isolated story. They were handed down in the middle of an execution campaign that has already taken hundreds of lives this year.
Iran Human Rights recorded at least 532 executions in the first eight months of 2026, including 82 in August alone. Only 77 of those 532 executions were announced by official sources. The rest were documented through the organization’s network and verified using independent sources.
In other words, while the Islamic Republic publishes its pardons, most of its executions happen with considerably less enthusiasm for publicity.
Iran Human Rights recorded at least 1,639 executions in 2025, a 68 percent increase from the previous year and the highest annual figure the organization has documented since 1989.
Many were sentenced to death for murder or drug-related offenses, often after proceedings criticized for serious violations of due process. But that distinction does not make the wider execution spree irrelevant to political repression.
The gallows create their own atmosphere. When a state executes people on such a scale, often without public acknowledgment, every new death sentence against a protester carries a very clear message.
At least 31 protesters had been executed by the end of August, according to Iran Human Rights. Twenty-nine of them had been arrested in connection with the January protests.
Amnesty International has also warned that dozens of protesters and dissidents remain under death sentences or at risk of execution.
The ten defendants in Isfahan are therefore not the entire story. They are the latest names added to a much larger campaign.
The case is known as the “Isfahan Shohada Square case.” According to matching reports by HRANA and Hengaw, those sentenced to death are Taraneh Rahimi, Navid Elyasi, Abolfazl Dadgostar, Mehdi Mansouri, Ahmadreza Saeidi, Mehrdad Boveyri, Mohammad Mehdi Asadi, Armin Gholami, Parsa Jafari and Mehdi Jafari, also known as Mehdi Jafari Khosravi.
All ten were also sentenced to 11 years in prison. Six other defendants received terms ranging from 16 to 36 years. Together, the prison sentences imposed on the 16 defendants amount to 256 years.
The charges include moharebeh, usually translated as “waging war against God,” allegedly through carrying bladed weapons, as well as destruction of public property, assembly and collusion, and propaganda against the state.
Two people died during the events around Shohada Square: a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a homeless man. Yet the indictment reportedly did not charge the defendants directly with killing either of them.
According to HRANA and Hengaw, no documented evidence was presented establishing their responsibility for those deaths.
One detail is especially difficult to forget. A video found on the phones of some defendants reportedly shows Taraneh Rahimi, the only woman among the ten sentenced to death, trying to stop people from beating the homeless man.
She was reportedly attempting to prevent violence. The court sentenced her to death.
The defendants’ lawyers were denied access to significant parts of the case files and were not given sufficient time to review the evidence, according to the two organizations. The hearing was held inside Dastgerd Prison rather than an ordinary public courtroom.
During the proceedings, Ahmadreza Saeidi told the judges that an investigator had tortured him with electric shocks to his neck and genitals. There is no public indication that the allegation led to an independent investigation or caused the court to reconsider evidence obtained during his interrogation.
The full judgment has not been published, leaving no way for independent observers to examine the evidence or understand how the court justified ten death sentences without directly charging the defendants over the two deaths at the center of the case.
The verdicts are preliminary and can still be appealed. For the families, it offers limited comfort. They now have to wait while the same judicial system accused of denying the defense proper access to the case decides whether their loved ones should live.
This is what makes the pardon announcement so revealing.
Clemency is real for those who receive it. A prisoner returning home is not a public relations statistic to the family waiting at the door. A reduced sentence can restore years of someone’s life, and none of that should be dismissed.
But selective clemency should not be mistaken for a change in direction, especially while executions continue at this scale.
The 2,577 pardons offer the public one image of the state. The hundreds of executions offer another, one that receives considerably less official attention. Political defendants are being placed inside a system of capital punishment already operating at extraordinary speed.
The Isfahan case shows how that machinery can be directed against protest. A broad charge such as “waging war against God,” limited access to evidence, an allegation of torture and a closed hearing inside a prison can lead all the way to the gallows.
The pardons are meant to be seen. Most of the executions are not. Behind the official display of mercy, the machinery has not slowed down. Ten more people have now been placed in its path.
