Lawyer says half of 20 Mashhad protest death sentences are final

At least 20 people arrested over Iran's January protests have been sentenced to death in Mashhad, according to a human rights lawyer who says half the sentences are final. ^[1]

Marziyeh Mohebi gave the estimate to IranWire, which published her account on November 9. It is unconfirmed and rests on information she obtained, rather than an official account.

No independently established total or official case-by-case account confirms the figure, and its overlap with separately reported cases is not known. No judiciary response to her estimate or the other reported death sentences has been reported. ^{[1] [2]}

Mohebi said half the sentences remained under appeal. She identified two defendants arrested in Shandiz whose sentences, she said, had been upheld by Iran's Supreme Court and sent to the Office for the Execution of Judgments. That places those cases, in her account, beyond the appeal stage and with the office responsible for carrying out judgments. ^[1]

The warning comes from a city where protest-linked death sentences have already been carried out. Iran International reported that five people arrested in connection with January's demonstrations in Mashhad had been executed this year, three in May and two on September 30. ^[2]

If Mohebi's figure holds, it would mark a sharp escalation in the capital cases known from Mashhad. The most urgent part of her account is the division between sentences still being challenged and those she says are already final.

An appeal offers a chance to overturn a sentence. A case sent for enforcement presents a different danger.

Cases moving through the courts

Separate reporting supplies details of individual death sentences, though it does not establish Mohebi's overall estimate. In a November 5 article citing the Human Rights Activists News Agency, known as HRANA, Iran International described sentences imposed by Branch 5 of Mashhad's Revolutionary Court and appeals moving to the Supreme Court. ^[2]

Two defendants in that account received death sentences in cases involving alleged arson and destruction of public property. One was also accused of acting on behalf of an opposition group. Iran International said his case had been referred to the Supreme Court after an appeal.

These are reported accusations against the defendants, not independently established accounts of their conduct. ^[2]

The same article, again citing HRANA, described another defendant appealing a death sentence and three people sentenced to death in a separate joint case. The accounts show several capital proceedings at different stages, rather than a single judgment covering everyone arrested during the demonstrations. ^[2]

Mohebi said many of the cases she knew about arose from arrests in Shandiz and Mashhad's Tabarsi neighborhood. Her account therefore points to clusters of prosecutions within particular places caught up in the January protests. ^[1]

A citywide total conveys the scale, but the status of each judgment determines the immediate stakes for the person facing it.

Executions give the warning weight

There is an official record of the two September 30 executions. Iran's judiciary-affiliated Mizan news agency announced them, according to Iran Human Rights. The rights organization said both men had been arrested in connection with the January 8 and 9 protests in Mashhad. A detailed account of the conduct Mizan attributed to each man is not available, so its announcement establishes the executions rather than the truth of the accusations against them. ^[3]

Iran Human Rights said Branch 1 of Mashhad's Revolutionary Court sentenced the men and the Supreme Court upheld their sentences. It also said one of them denied being a protest leader and said he had killed no one. ^[3]

The path described in those completed cases runs through the same broad stages now at issue in Mohebi's warning: a Revolutionary Court sentence, Supreme Court review and enforcement. That history gives her account urgency without proving her estimate. ^{[1] [3]}

Questions about how convictions were obtained reach beyond the number of sentences. In an October 13 statement discussing five protest-related executions, Amnesty International said the trials had been grossly unfair and affected by torture-tainted confessions. Those were Amnesty's findings and assessments. ^[4]

Amnesty specifically said televised forced confessions were used as evidence against the two men executed in Mashhad on September 30. Its criticism goes to the basis on which a court decides guilt and imposes an irreversible punishment. ^[4]

An allegation of arson or opposition activity is not proof that a defendant committed it. Nor does confirmation that a sentence passed through the Supreme Court answer allegations that evidence was coerced. The fairness of the proceedings must be examined alongside their formal progress.

The next test is a case list

Mohebi's estimate now needs to be tested against identifiable judgments: which court imposed each sentence, what happened on appeal and whether the case has reached enforcement. A documented list would allow the total to be checked while separating new sentences from cases already publicly known.

Iran's judiciary can answer those questions through its own records.