The Islamic Republic of Iran executed four men arrested during a January crackdown on protesters in Tehran, hanging them over a five-day stretch in early April. Two of the dead were teenagers. The youngest was eighteen years old.
Mohammad Amin Biglari, a 19-year-old computer science student, and Shahin Vahedparast Kolor, 30, were hanged on April 5, as Fox News Digital reported, citing the Iran Human Rights organization. Days earlier, on April 2, 18-year-old Amirhossein Hatami was hanged. On April 6, 23-year-old Ali Fahim followed them to the gallows.
All four had been arrested on January 8 amid a regime crackdown against protesters in Iran’s capital city. The charges against them read like a catalog of theocratic repression.
The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights reported that Biglari and Kolor faced charges including “enmity against God (moharebeh), corruption on earth, arson of public facilities, and assembly and collusion to commit crimes against national security.” Iran’s judiciary-linked Mizan news outlet indicated the two men had been convicted of trying to storm a military facility and access an armory in January, as Reuters reported.
Hatami’s execution on April 2 was confirmed by Iran Human Rights, which cited the Mizan News Agency. Hengaw noted on Monday that Fahim’s execution on April 6 was likewise confirmed by Mizan.
Several other individuals were arrested alongside the four on January 8. How many remain in custody, and whether they face similar fates, remains unclear.
The regime’s willingness to hang young people is not new. But the pace and clustering of these executions, four men killed in five days, two of them teenagers, marks a grim escalation in the regime’s use of the death penalty as a political instrument.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Iran Human Rights, framed the killings in blunt terms. In a statement reported by Fox News Digital, he said:
“These executions are part of the Islamic Republic’s strategy of survival, waging war against its own people under the shadow of external conflict.”
That phrase, “under the shadow of external conflict”, deserves attention. The regime has long exploited foreign tensions to justify domestic brutality. When the world’s eyes turn toward missile strikes and naval standoffs, Tehran’s hangmen go to work on its own citizens.
Amiry-Moghaddam went further, calling on the international community to act:
“The international community must respond with urgency. The situation of prisoners and the regime’s systematic use of the death penalty as a political tool of repression must be made a central condition in any negotiations or engagement with the Islamic Republic.”
That demand, making executions a condition of any diplomatic engagement, is one that Western governments have historically been reluctant to enforce. The Obama-era nuclear deal imposed no meaningful human-rights benchmarks. European governments eager to resume trade with Tehran rarely let hangings get in the way of commerce.
The broader context of U.S. and Israeli military operations against Iran adds another layer to the regime’s calculus. As Iran has faced strikes on its military infrastructure, the theocracy appears to be turning inward with greater ferocity, punishing its own population as external pressure mounts.
President Donald Trump posted a direct warning to Iran on Truth Social on Sunday, demanding the regime open the Strait of Hormuz and threatening strikes on Iranian power plants and bridges.
Trump wrote: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F—in’ Strait, you crazy b******, or you’ll be living in H*** – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
The message was unmistakable. While critics may bristle at the tone, the substance reflects a willingness to impose real costs on a regime that has spent decades testing American resolve. The question is whether Tehran’s leaders, men who hang teenagers for protesting, are capable of rational self-preservation.
Photo captions from Fox News Digital captured the scale of recent conflict: a destroyed residential building near Ferdowsi square in Tehran on March 3, 2026, and a large plume of smoke rising over the city on March 28, 2026, after explosions were reported overnight. Trump was photographed taking a question from a reporter on March 31, 2026, after signing an executive order in the Oval Office.
The ongoing intelligence and policy debates in Washington over Iran underscore how central the regime’s behavior has become to U.S. national security discussions.
Strip away the regime’s legal language and what remains is straightforward. Four young men, ages 18, 19, 23, and 30, were arrested during protests in Tehran. Within months, all four were dead, executed by hanging.
The charges of “enmity against God” and “corruption on earth” are not legal categories recognizable in any system rooted in due process. They are instruments of theocratic control, elastic enough to cover any act of dissent the regime wishes to punish with death.
Biglari was a computer science student. He was nineteen. Hatami was eighteen. These were not hardened militants. They were young men swept up in a protest and fed through a judicial system designed to produce convictions and corpses.
Iranian student Mooné Rahimi joined Fox News’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” to warn that executions are rising and to recount arrests by Iran’s morality police. The regime, Rahimi indicated, is using executions to stifle protests.
The pattern is familiar. Iran’s government faces internal unrest, cracks down with mass arrests, and then uses its courts to turn protesters into examples. The debate over capital punishment in the Middle East takes on a different character when the death penalty is wielded not against convicted terrorists but against teenagers who dared to march.
Key details remain missing from the public record. The specific location of the military facility and armory the men allegedly tried to storm has not been identified. The court or legal process that produced the convictions has not been described in available reporting. The number of other individuals arrested alongside the four on January 8 has not been disclosed.
These gaps matter. A regime that executes teenagers owes the world, at minimum, a transparent accounting of the evidence and process that led to the gallows. Iran has provided none.
The international community’s response, or lack of it, will say as much about Western seriousness as it does about Iranian brutality. Amiry-Moghaddam’s call to make executions a condition of engagement is the right demand. Whether any government with leverage over Tehran will actually make it remains the open question.
When a government hangs an eighteen-year-old for protesting and calls it justice, the world doesn’t need more negotiations. It needs clarity about what it’s negotiating with.
By signing up, you agree to receive our newsletters and promotional content and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.