Iran hanged two protesters at dawn on Monday, June 1, executing Mehrdad Mohammadinia and Ashkan Maleki for their role in the January anti-regime demonstrations. The executions bring a steady drumbeat of death sentences for protesters, even as a US-Israeli military campaign has shattered the country's infrastructure and internet access. Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) has verified 6,488 protester deaths, with another 11,744 cases still under review.
Morteza Ebrahimi, 35, vanished on January 8. That night, special units fired military-grade weapons into crowds in Tehran neighborhoods. Internet access was severed nationwide.
Several thousand people died in a single night. His name does not appear on any official list. Not on the detainee registry.
Not among the dead identified by the Iranian Legal Medicine Organisation, the forensic arm of the justice ministry. His family converged on the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Centre in Tehran's southern suburbs, where refrigerated lorries delivered dozens of bodies in the days after the crackdown. They found nothing.
No confirmation. No closure. Just the black hole of a security apparatus that has swallowed thousands.
Ebrahimi is one face of a catastrophe that human rights groups are struggling to document. The Virginia-based NGO Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) published a comprehensive report in late February recording 6,488 confirmed protester deaths. An additional 11,744 cases remain under review and are excluded from confirmed totals, the report noted.
The real number is almost certainly higher. The crackdown has not paused for war. On February 28, the United States and Israel launched a full-scale military campaign against Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and assassinating top officials.
A near-total blackout followed the intermittent cuts imposed during the January protests. IranWire, a diaspora-run collective of professional and citizen journalists, described what returned as a "drip-feed" of connectivity. Families now flood Iranian cyberspace with desperate posts, a backlog of grief released in fragments. "With the outbreak of the war on Saturday, February 28, accompanied by widespread internet cutoffs and disruptions, accessing information about the status of detainees and prisoners has become significantly more difficult, further compounding the anxiety of families," IranWire reported.
The war has also disrupted documentation efforts by Iranian NGOs operating outside the country. The scale of the crackdown is slipping further from view even as it accelerates. Mohammadinia and Maleki were hanged at dawn on June 1.
The Iranian judiciary sentenced them to death for "participating in operational activities against national security" and "collaborating with hostile governments." Their executions are part of a wave. Dozens of protesters arrested during the December 2025 to January 2026 uprisings face death sentences on charges of attacking security forces or trespassing on military installations. Some have already been executed.
Amnesty International condemned the proceedings. "Iranian authorities are using the cover of what they call 'wartime conditions' to intensify their repression of dissent through mass arbitrary arrests, accelerated grossly unfair judicial proceedings, politically motivated executions, harsh prison sentences, and asset confiscations," the organization stated. The repression reaches into childhood. The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran reported that hundreds of children have been arbitrarily detained, subjected to enforced disappearance, and denied access to families and legal counsel.
At least 216 children were killed during the protests. Nima Araban is 17. He has spent more than four months in the Isfahan Juvenile Correctional and Rehabilitation Centre.
He was arrested during the January protests in Naein, Isfahan province, at the same time as Abbas Akbari Feyzabadi. Feyzabadi was hanged on May 25. Araban is three months from his 18th birthday. "Nima Araban is currently 17 years and 9 months old and is approximately three months away from reaching the legal age of adulthood.
Given the execution of his co-defendant, concerns among Nima's family and relatives have intensified regarding the possibility of a heavy sentence being issued against him after he reaches legal adulthood," a source close to the case told the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Diana Taherabadi is 16. The high school student was arrested at her home in late January and is being held at the Kachoui Juvenile Rehabilitation and Correctional Centre.
IranWire reported that sources close to her family say confessions were extracted during detention — a claim not independently verified. During her judicial hearing, she rejected all charges and stated she played no role in the matters attributed to her. These cases directly contradict official statements.
Iran's Education Ministry spokesperson Ali Farhadi told the ISNA news agency in early February that "thanks to the Iranian education minister's oversight, no student remained in detention from the very first days of the unrest." The claim was false then. It remains false now. The Revolutionary Guards issued a warning on March 13.
Any new mobilization against the government would trigger a response "more severe" than January's crackdown. "Today, the enemy, unable to achieve its military objectives on the ground, is once again seeking to instil terror and provoke riots," the Guards stated. The regime's paranoia over informants and collaborators has multiplied under wartime conditions. Repression has exploded accordingly.
Follow the leverage, not the rhetoric. The regime is using the US-Israeli war as cover to eliminate domestic opposition permanently. Wartime security conditions provide legal pretext.
The international community's attention is diverted. The internet blackouts prevent documentation. Every element of the crackdown benefits from the conflict.
Families continue to resist. Last week, relatives of Pajman Norooz Rajabi gathered at the spot where the 27-year-old athlete was killed by security forces on January 8 in Tonekabon, a northern Iranian city on the Caspian coast. A small group of mourners — some wearing T-shirts with Rajabi's photograph — threw flower petals on the street.
One family member held a framed photograph. Mourners ululated. Others raised a wordless cry.
Evening traffic sped past the tiny gathering. Some drivers honked in solidarity. A collective memory outlives the dead.
The math does not add up. The regime claims to have restored order. It claims no students remain in detention.
It claims judicial proceedings are fair. But 6,488 dead protesters and 11,744 cases under review tell a different story. Executed co-defendants and teenagers awaiting adulthood in juvenile detention tell a different story.
Families searching morgues and finding nothing tell a different story. Here is what they are not telling you. The executions are not slowing.
The detentions are not ending. The war is not a distraction from the crackdown — it is an accelerant. Every week brings new death sentences.
Every week, families post desperate searches into a fractured internet. The world's attention is fixed on military strikes and geopolitical maneuvering. Inside Iran, a quieter war is being waged against an entire generation.
Why It Matters:
The Iranian regime is exploiting the US-Israeli military campaign to liquidate domestic opposition with near-total impunity. Wartime conditions have severed internet access, disrupted NGO documentation efforts, and provided legal cover for accelerated executions. The crackdown targets not just adult protesters but hundreds of children — some held in juvenile detention awaiting adulthood and the death penalty that comes with it.
For the families of the disappeared, the war has not ended their search. It has made it nearly impossible. - At least 6,488 protesters have been confirmed killed since December 2025, with 11,744 additional cases under review, according to HRAI. - The US-Israel war that began February 28 has intensified repression by severing internet access, disrupting documentation, and providing wartime legal cover. What comes next is grim.
Nima Araban turns 18 in approximately three months. At that point, the regime can legally execute him. Diana Taherabadi and hundreds of other detained minors face similar timelines.
The Revolutionary Guards have promised a response "more severe" than January's crackdown if protests resume. The war shows no sign of ending. Internet access remains a "drip-feed." The documentation gap widens.
The executions will continue. The families will keep searching. The world will likely keep looking elsewhere.
Key Takeaways
— - Iran has executed at least two more protesters and holds hundreds of children in detention, with some awaiting adulthood to face death sentences.
— - The US-Israel war that began February 28 has intensified repression by cutting internet access, disrupting NGO documentation, and providing wartime legal cover for executions.
— - Families of the disappeared continue searching despite official denial, military threats, and a fractured internet that allows only fragments of information to surface.
Source: Telegram / IranWire / HRANA
