Two Iranian women sentenced to death for participation in January protests

September 28, 2026

NewsNation – Two Iranian women sentenced to death for participation in January protests

Two Iranian women have been sentenced to death by the regime for their involvement in the January protests.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps killed thousands of civilians on the streets of Iran during the protests, and dozens more have been executed or sentenced to death.

According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Mahboubeh Shabani was sentenced to death after being arrested during the January protests. She was arrested on Feb. 2 in Mashhad and is currently being held at Vakilabad Prison.

She was sentenced by Branch 1 of the Mashhad Revolutionary Court and charged with “taking operational action to strengthen Israel, the United States, and individuals affiliated with opposition groups,” based on the HRANA report.

Executions designed to prevent uprising

Iranian refugee and political activist Rayan Amiri, founder of the Conservative Party of Iran, told NewsNation the regime is targeting women specifically to evoke fear in citizens to control future dissent.

“By increasing the executions and especially the execution of young women, the Islamist regime occupying Iran is desperately trying to instill fear in the minds of the Iranian people to prevent them from shaping the next anti-regime uprising,” Amiri said. “That is their objective to terrorize Iranian society. They sentence women to death. They hang young men in public. These are crimes against humanity and the continuation of the crimes they committed in the January uprising and uprisings before.”

During the protests, 23-year-old student Najmeh Amini was arrested on Jan. 31 in Mashhad. She is being held at the same Mashhad prison as Shabani and is facing a death sentence.

In an audio recording believed to be Amini, she said on Sept. 16 she was sentenced to death and urges the international community, along with the United Nations, to aid her so she can have a fair trial.

Amini was tried on charges of “assembly and collusion” and “insulting religious sanctities and the Imams,” based on HRANA’s report.

Amini said in response to her sentencing, “I am an innocent young girl with so many hopes and dreams. Be my voice,” according to Iran International.

US won’t seek to end human rights abuses, retired CENTCOM officer says

The United Nations told NewsNation, “The Secretary-General (António Guterres) has been consistent in condemning publicly the use of the death penalty in Iran and everywhere else it is still in effect. He has raised the issue of the death penalty in his meeting with the president of Iran last week.”

Retired Lt. Col. Mike Nelson, who has extensive experience with U.S. Central Command, told NewsNation while the status of the United States’ war with Iran is unclear, he believes the citizens of the nation will not receive intervention from the U.S. for their ongoing humanitarian crisis.

“It is abundantly clear that we will do nothing, nor even seek to, to relieve the human rights abuses and repression the Iranian people endure at the hands of the regime,” Nelson said.

An estimated 50,000 people, including 250 children, were killed by the IRGC during the January protests, sources tell NewsNation.

In August, Hengaw Organization for Human Rights said six imprisoned Iranian women are awaiting “imminent” execution as political prisoners in Evin Prison in Tehran and prisons in Rasht. Three of the women were detained for participating in the January protests.

Women in Iranian prisons subjected to brutal treatment: sources

While being held in prison, women are subjected to brutal torture and rape, according to NewsNation sources, which leads to forced and false confessions to crimes they did not commit.

“This is the dark age of Iran under the Islamic Republic, when clerics are ruling and terrorizing society with religious dogma. There is no justice in Iran. There is torture, executions, gunning down of unarmed civilian protesters and other crimes against humanity,” Amiri said.

“They break the body until the mouth says what the Islamist court already decided. That is not justice. That is the method of an occupying death-cult that has no legitimacy left except the rope and the confession it manufactures,” he continued.

NewsNation reported in July the Islamic Republic of Iran is set on “eliminating” arrested anti-regime protesters through executions, and in April, Iran’s judiciary chief, Mohseni-Ejei, asked for a hastening of the executions.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.