Iranian courts have sentenced two women to death for participating in anti-government protests last January, human rights groups said on Monday. Taraneh Rahimi and Leila Aboulhasani went on trial in separate cases related to incidents in Isfahan, where large demonstrations culminated on January 8 and 9.
Taraneh, 20, was sentenced to death along with nine other men for incidents in a square that left two people dead, one of whom was a member of the security forces. Other defendants in the same case, including Taraneh's sister, Romina, were sentenced to prison terms of up to 36 years.
"The defendants' lawyers did not have access to many of their files and did not have sufficient time to review the documents and evidence," HRANA reported.
Leila Abolhasani, 43, a beautician and mother of two teenagers, was found guilty of setting fire to a shop during a protest. Her relatives deny the charges and say she was simply filming the fire. Her case has been referred to the Court of Appeal.
Since the start of the war with the United States, Tehran has executed 29 men accused of involvement in the protests, according to the Norway-based non-governmental organization Iran Human Rights (IHR). No women have been executed on such charges, but at least 16 have been executed for other crimes.
In April, US President Donald Trump retweeted a message on the X platform from a young pro-Israel activist who claimed that eight Iranian women were facing hanging and called for their release. However, some of these women had not been sentenced to death and others had already been released.
One of them, Bita Hemati, was sentenced to death for throwing concrete blocks from a roof at security forces, but HRANA reported that same month that her sentence had been overturned. ©LAPSI.al
