Blogger sentenced to death in Iran on security-related charges

A butcher in Karaj told Iran International that some customers now ask for their meat to be placed in black bags so it does not attract attention.

He described an elderly woman who had just bought meat when a man on a motorbike snatched the bag from her hand, causing her to fall and suffer injuries.

Police and judicial authorities do not publish detailed statistics on food theft, making it impossible to establish its scale or whether such crimes have increased. But basic groceries feature repeatedly in recent media reports of theft.

Some cases appear to involve people with no previous history of crime.

Meat, rice, cream

State news agency IRNA reported the case of a woman caught hiding two tubs of cream under her chador. When stopped by a security guard, she said her children were hungry. Her husband, described as a day labourer, reportedly knew nothing about the theft.

In a review of similar cases, IRNA said some of those accused, including housewives, had no criminal record and were facing theft charges for the first time. Cheese, yoghurt, cream and cooking oil were among the goods being stolen, it said.

The newspaper Jahan-e Sanat has separately reported thefts of cheese, butter and meat from shops.

The reports come as the cost of basic food has risen far faster than overall prices.

According to the Statistical Center of Iran, year-on-year inflation for food and drink reached 127.5 percent in the month to late August, meaning average prices in the category had more than doubled in a year.

Some staples rose considerably faster. Solid vegetable oil increased by more than 383 percent, eggs by nearly 294 percent, chicken by around 177 percent and red meat by 148 percent.

Iranian media reported last month that a kilogram of beef fillet cost around 42.7 million rials, about $19. At that price, one kilogram was equivalent to roughly seven and a half days of earnings at the minimum daily wage of 5.54 million rials, or about $2.50.

Armed robberies

But food is also appearing in crimes that have little apparent connection to immediate hunger, suggesting that sharply higher prices have made groceries more attractive to thieves.

In eastern Tehran, members of a gang who police said confessed to more than 10 house burglaries were stealing rice alongside gold, dollars and coins.

Police have also reported larger thefts, including around 1.5 tons of rice and other groceries from a storeroom in Tehran and approximately 15 tons of rice from a private warehouse in Rey.

Local media reported two armed robberies of shops in Iranshahr, in Sistan and Baluchistan province. In one, attackers took six sacks of rice, around 12 bottles of cooking oil, tinned food and pulses. In another, robbers fired shots before taking rice and cooking oil.

The cases cannot establish that food theft is increasing, nor do they point to a single motive. Shoplifting by someone struggling to feed a family is plainly different from a gang stealing rice alongside gold or raiding a warehouse.

What connects them is the changing value of food after years of inflation, particularly the steep price rises of recent months. Basic groceries have become increasingly difficult for many Iranians to afford — and valuable enough to steal.

Mohammad-Sadegh Motamedian did not identify which institutions were using the schools or disclose how many educational facilities had yet to be returned to the Education Ministry.

“These educational spaces must be handed over to the Education Ministry before the start of the school year, and where there are challenges, the relevant institution should inform the province so alternative space can be provided and the issue resolved,” Motamedian said.

The Revolutionary Guards, Basij paramilitary force and police used schools to station personnel during and after the war.

Dozens of schools used during war

An Iran International investigation published in March found that security and military forces moved personnel, weapons and equipment into at least 70 civilian sites across 17 provinces during the US-Israeli strikes from March 2 to 14.

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Nearly half of the locations – 34 – were primary or secondary schools. Other sites included hospitals, stadiums, universities, mosques, parks and government offices.

Footage from several cities showed security vehicles, personnel or military equipment on school grounds.

‘Schools offered greater security’

Journalist Ali Hossein Ghazizadeh said schools offered forces large courtyards, numerous rooms and locations among residential buildings at a time when military bases were being targeted.

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  Iran’s military uses schools and civilian sites during US-Israeli war

“Being in schools provides greater security for them,” Ghazizadeh told.

Schools were particularly useful for relocating personnel after bases and other facilities were struck, and their location among civilian buildings provided additional protection, Ghazizadeh said.

The use of educational facilities did not necessarily end with the fighting, Ghazizadeh said, adding that Iran International had received information indicating that some institutions sought to retain schools for longer-term use.

Civilian protection concerns

Schools are generally protected as civilian objects under international humanitarian law but can lose that protection if their use makes them military objectives. Attacking forces remain bound by rules including distinction, proportionality and precautions to limit civilian harm.

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Iranian officials have denied using civilians as shields and accused Israel of targeting civilian infrastructure during the conflict.

The Israeli military confirmed to Iran International in March that it had identified Iranian forces deploying personnel and weapons at civilian sites, including schools, mosques and stadiums.

“Despite all these surgeries, I am still confined to my home,” the protester, whose identity and place of residence are being withheld for security reasons, told Iran International. “I am married, and during this time we have faced many problems paying for my treatment.”

His family eventually sold their car to help cover his medical bills, the protester said. Doctors have told him that regaining the ability to walk could take at least another year.

The account reflects the prolonged physical and financial consequences facing some people wounded during the protests, with Iran International receiving multiple accounts of injured demonstrators struggling to obtain treatment and pay medical expenses months later.

23 operations and more treatment ahead

The gunshot caused extensive damage to the protester’s leg, requiring doctors to perform muscle and skin grafts during a series of operations.

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“About a month has passed since the skin graft, and the Ilizarov device that was fitted to my leg at the beginning of treatment is due to be put back on for about three months,” the protester said.

An Ilizarov apparatus is an external bone-fixation system using metal rings, rods and wires to gradually reposition sections of bone. It can be used to treat severe damage or the loss of part of a bone.

Doctors also attached a vacuum-assisted device to the wound for several months to promote new tissue growth, the protester said.

Infection, nerve damage and numbness later forced doctors to remove some of the repaired tissue and perform a muscle graft about six months after the shooting, according to the protester.

“I asked people who were able to help, but in the end, with great difficulty and even by selling our car, we tried to cover the costs,” he said.

Security fears complicate hospital treatment

Fear of arrest or identification at hospitals has complicated treatment for some protesters wounded during demonstrations, prompting some to seek medical care covertly or at home.

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  Iranian protester undergoes months of secret treatment to save wounded leg

“After one of the surgeries, because there were many security officers in the emergency department, the doctor helped me leave the hospital,” the protester said.

Hospital staff recorded the cause of his injuries as a traffic accident, and his doctor later helped take him to Tehran to continue undergoing surgery, the protester said.

“I really do not know how to thank the medical staff,” he added. “They cooperated extensively and tried to make sure nothing else happened to me.”

Protester recounts January 8 shooting

Security forces initially fired pellets toward demonstrators before a live round struck his leg at close range on the evening of January 8, the protester said.

“My whole body is covered with pellet marks. The bullet hit my leg from close range,” he said. “When I was shot, they dragged me along the ground while I was in a very bad condition. I will never forget that night.”

Security personnel insulted him and tried to remove his clothing after he was wounded, according to his account.

“I held tightly onto my trousers, and they struck my hands with their boots,” he said. “My entire body was bruised, and I even thought my ribs were broken.”

The officers then put him on a motorcycle, the protester said.

“One of them said, ‘Don’t hit him here, take him farther up,’” he said. “I thought they meant they were going to finish me off. I passed out from fear.”

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The protester said he regained consciousness alone in a dark alley, where an elderly couple found him and helped him reach a hospital.

“At first, I thought I was dead,” he said. “Then an elderly woman and man found me. They were like angels to me and helped me get to the hospital.”

The protester said he had joined the demonstrations knowing that doing so could put his life at risk.

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  Security forces seized Iran hospital, sent wounded protesters to morgue

“That night, I went out like many others, and I knew I might lose my life, but for me it was about Iran,” he said.

Six months after the shooting, the protester remains unable to walk, with further procedures ahead and no certainty over when he will regain mobility.

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.

Eight months later, images of the killings and crackdown remain vivid for survivors and the wider public. Iranians describing life after January have spoken of recurring nightmares, crying at night and difficulty returning to ordinary life. Some survivors have attempted suicide.

For many, life is now divided into before and after January.

Body bags have also acquired a place in Iran’s collective memory that they did not have before. Previously associated largely with films, natural disasters and major emergencies, they appeared repeatedly in footage documenting the aftermath of the January killings.

Images from earlier waves of unrest – the 2009 protests, November 2019 and the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement – often showed the bodies of those killed: lying in streets, on hospital beds or wrapped in burial shrouds.

In January 2026, the dead were frequently hidden behind black bags and zippers. Faces disappeared from view and rows of bags remained.

The distinction matters. An object intended to preserve bodies for transportation and identification became one of the most recognizable images of the crackdown.

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Amnesty International counted at least 205 separate body bags in verified images from the Kahrizak morgue, south of Tehran. Human Rights Watch identified at least 400 bodies or body bags in three verified videos.

Eurovision News Spotlight, a verification project run by the European Broadcasting Union, also identified the green markings of Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra cemetery on some of the body bags.

The trauma behind the bags

Part of the disturbing power of such images comes from what the bags conceal.

An exposed body, however difficult to see, retains a face and visible identity. Hundreds of nearly identical bags can instead reduce individuals to units: one package beside another, one number beside another, with the total continuing to rise.

For relatives searching for somebody missing, however, those bags have to be opened. Each zipper brings the possibility of encountering the body of a parent, child, sibling or friend.

This can be understood as a particular trauma associated with body bags: the combination of mass death, the temporary erasure of individual identity, the anxiety of identifying the dead and the repeated return of the same visual image.

There is also the question of dignity. Each bag contains a person whose family may be searching for them, yet footage showed bodies left in rows on the ground as relatives tried to identify them.

Such scenes are not unique to Iran.

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  36,500 deaths in context: How Iran’s toll compares with wars and crackdowns

After Egyptian security forces opened fire on protesters around Cairo’s Rabaa Square in the summer of 2013, the El-Iman mosque became a temporary morgue. Bodies were placed in tightly packed rows under white sheets. Volunteers wrote victims’ names on the coverings; some carried names and addresses, while others remained unidentified.

Families also searched morgues in Damascus after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, opening bags, photographing faces and comparing them with images of missing relatives and acquaintances.

Those bags represented an archive of years of enforced disappearances, torture and deaths in custody.

Iran’s January 2026 images were different in one important respect. The bags appeared during the days and nights of the crackdown itself, within the existing system of hospitals, forensic facilities and cemeteries.

In much of the footage, rows of black bags are visible without names or identifying information that can be seen on their surfaces.

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  Over 36,500 killed in Iran's deadliest massacre, documents reveal

The victims’ faces are concealed, but the sheer number of bags makes the scale of death visible.

The bags also did not arrive at morgues by themselves. Behind the images was a system responsible for collecting, transporting, recording and storing bodies.

What happened after the shooting

Mass killing does not end when shooting stops. Bodies have to be moved. That requires ambulances or other vehicles, body bags and labels, morgues or refrigerated containers and lists recording the dead. Decisions also have to be made about where bodies are stored, when they can be identified and under what conditions they are returned to families.

Reports following the killings on January 8 and 9 described shortages of body bags and bodies accumulating in hospitals and morgues.

That raises another question: where did the additional bags come from, and how prepared were authorities for handling large numbers of bodies?

Two procurement notices for body bags appeared around the time of the killings in Alborz province, one of the main centers of the protests and subsequent crackdown.

The Imam Hossein medical center in Alborz sought quotations on January 4, after the protests had begun, for 200 adult body bags and eight bags for children.

Shariati Hospital in Karaj had separately registered a request for 200 adult body bags on December 18, with the procurement notice published two days later.

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  Iranian protester undergoes months of secret treatment to save wounded leg

The timing, particularly of the Imam Hossein request, warrants scrutiny. But the records alone do not demonstrate that authorities anticipated mass killings, nor do they establish that these particular bags were subsequently used to carry protesters’ bodies.

Several links in the procurement chain are also missing, including final contracts, delivery receipts, shipment numbers and warehouse release documents.

Body bags are routine supplies for hospitals, cemeteries and emergency services. Purchasing them is therefore not in itself evidence of preparation for a crackdown.

Reports of shortages in cities including Arak, Khorramabad and Gorgan, however, suggest that ordinary stocks were rapidly exhausted. If so, additional supplies would have had to be distributed, potentially following further purchases.

That leaves a narrower but important question: what level of fatalities was the system for handling bodies equipped to manage, and did January’s death toll overwhelm that capacity?

Turning numbers back into names

In hospitals, forensic facilities and disaster operations, body bags serve practical purposes: separating and transporting the dead and protecting workers from contact with blood and bodily fluids.

Joint guidance from the World Health Organization and International Committee of the Red Cross says each body should be placed separately in a bag, with the location and time it was found recorded. Personal belongings should remain with the body and each person should receive a unique identification number.

That number is not intended to erase a name. Its purpose is to help establish an identity and ultimately return the body to relatives.

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  How one Tehran hospital became a window into Iran’s January massacre

For some Iranian families in January, the process appeared to work in reverse: they searched through bags and thousands of photographs in an effort to turn a number back into the name of somebody they knew.

The father of Iman Asadi spent five days searching police stations, prisons and hospitals before finding his son’s photograph among thousands of images of unidentified people.

In that collection, Iman was No. 11838.

A number intended to assist identification had become, at least temporarily, the marker of a person without a name.

Another father, Esmail Shokri, was filmed walking among body bags at the Kahrizak forensic facility in a 12-minute video, calling out for his son.

“Sepehr ... Sepehr, my son ... where are you?” Shokri called.

Every bag could have contained Sepehr. To his family, he had a face, a history and a name. From the outside, each closed black bag looked much like the next.

That is what distinguishes some of the most enduring images of January 2026 from those of earlier Iranian crackdowns. Previously, the victim’s body often occupied the center of the frame. This time, for many Iranians, the body bag stood between the dead and the public looking at them.