Iran: Executions of young people, a favored tool of repression

Young people, including many teenagers, are being hanged in Iran at an alarming rate. At least 532 people were executed between January 1 and August 31, 2026, according to Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), an Oslo-based human rights NGO that documents executions and human rights violations in Iran. The organization says it has received reports of more than 500 additional executions, including those of many young people and university students, which it has not yet been able to verify.

According to the same source, 270 of the 532 people executed had been convicted of “murder” and 180 of “drug-related offenses.” Another 71, however, were executed on “national security” charges, including 27 protesters, 13 political prisoners affiliated with banned opposition groups, and 14 people accused of “espionage or collaboration with foreign states.”

An acceleration that goes beyond the justice system

The pace accelerated particularly sharply this past August. Iran Human Rights recorded 82 executions during the month, including 40 for “murder,” 34 for “drug-related offenses,” and eight on “national security” charges. Six women were among those executed, and three protesters arrested during the January 2026 demonstrations were also hanged.

Of the 532 recorded executions, only 77, or 14.5%, had been announced by official sources. The other 451 were verified by Iran Human Rights using two independent sources.

These figures show the scale of the use of the death penalty, but they alone are not enough to establish its political purpose. To understand what sets some of the 2026 executions apart, we therefore need to examine cases linked to protests and national security more closely.

The gallows for protesters

Human Rights Watch and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center documented at least 59 executions between March 18 and the end of August 2026 on “national security” charges. At least 29 of those executed had been arrested during the December 2025 and January 2026 protests, and three others during the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. Several were 18 or 19 years old, and five were executed in public.

In 16 of the 29 cases linked to the recent protests, no murder charges had been brought. The two organizations also report sweeping charges, rushed proceedings, and numerous instances of torture and ill-treatment intended to extract confessions. Many teenagers have been convicted, tortured, and hanged in such cases.

The public nature of some executions heightens their deterrent effect. HRW believes they are intended, among other things, to instill fear beyond those sentenced to death. In August, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said that at least 56 people had been executed since March 19 on “national security” charges, including 27 in connection with the protests, while more than a hundred others were at risk of execution.

While some of the executions recorded in 2026 involved “murder” or “drugs,” the available data also show extensive use of the death penalty in cases linked to national security and protests.

Historical precedents

The use of capital punishment amid unrest recalls historical episodes in other countries, but does not establish an automatic link between repression and a regime’s collapse. In Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown in December 1989 after a popular uprising spread and part of the army sided with the protesters. He was arrested, tried by a military tribunal and executed alongside his wife Elena on December 25.

Other examples bear some similarities. In Libya, as Muammar Gaddafi’s forces were losing control of Tripoli in August 2011, Human Rights Watch documented the execution of at least 45 detainees in a warehouse near a Khamis Brigade base, just days before the capital fell. In Iraq under Saddam Hussein, political executions had long been part of the regime’s repressive methods; between March and July 2002, at least 58 people were reportedly executed, including 33 political prisoners held at Abu Ghraib, less than a year before the US invasion that brought down the regime in 2003.

In Iran, following the mass executions of political prisoners in 1988, Amnesty International documented more than 900 executions for “criminal offenses” between January and May 1989. Yet the Iranian regime did not fall.

These precedents therefore show one thing: intensified repression may accompany a period of profound crisis, but it is not, on its own, an indicator that a government is about to fall. Other factors—the trajectory of the protests, the cohesion or fragmentation of institutions, the stance of the security apparatus and the government’s ability to retain its supporters—can play a decisive role.

Can fear replace consent?

Iran’s situation must be viewed in this light. The government retains a substantial security apparatus and the capacity to suppress demonstrations. Executions are one of its key instruments of coercion.

The available data reveal two parallel trends: a rise in the number of executions and the systematic use of capital punishment in cases related to national security and protests.

Capital punishment acts as a deterrent and helps temporarily contain dissent. But on its own, it cannot serve as a short-term measure of a political system’s strength or fragility. The question, then, remains where the limits of this practice lie: how far can a government rely on fear to maintain its authority without repression deepening divisions within society?