Two Kurdish political prisoners, Ashkan Maleki and Mehrdad Mohammadinia, have been secretly executed in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj after being sentenced to death in a rapid and unfair process.
Arman Marefati, another Kurdish political prisoner and defendant in the same case, remains at risk of imminent execution after being taken from Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary on 25 May, with no information available since then about his condition or whereabouts.
Maleki and Mohammadinia, two Kurdish citizens from Qorveh, Kurdistan Province, were detained during the December 2025–January 2026 protests and executed at dawn on 1 June.
They were not granted the right to a final visit with their families before the executions were carried out in secret.
Mizan, the news agency affiliated with the judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran, announced the executions and said the two men had been sentenced to death on charges of “participation in operational acts against national security on behalf of the Zionist regime and the hostile US government, and hostile groups and agents affiliated with them, which led to terror, panic and the creation of insecurity in society, as well as entering religious and sacred places with the intention of destroying and setting fire to public and private property, including a mosque and a seminary, with the aim of confronting the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) had previously published a report on the death sentence issued against Arman Marefati, another defendant in the case, stating that the three Kurdish citizens were detained during the December 2025–January 2026 protests.
During interrogation in a security detention facility, they were subjected to physical and psychological torture to extract forced confessions.
Following the end of the interrogation period, Maleki and Mohammadinia were transferred to Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, while Marefati was transferred to Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary.
In March, Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran, presided over by Judge Abolghassem Salavati, sentenced all three political prisoners to death without access to lawyers of their choice.
The Supreme Court upheld the sentences after a rushed review.
Marefati was removed from Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary on 25 May under the pretext of being transferred to Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, and the continuing lack of information about his condition and place of detention has intensified concerns that his death sentence may be carried out imminently.
