Iran has sentenced Bita Hemmati to death, marking the first time a woman has faced execution for the January 2026 anti-regime protests, amid a broader government crackdown involving over 1,600 death sentences in the past year.
Bita Hemmati is set to become the first woman executed in connection with the widespread anti-regime demonstrations that erupted across Iran in January 2026. According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and human rights organizations, Hemmati was sentenced to death by the Tehran Revolutionary Court following an expedited trial that relied on charges of “operational action for a hostile state.” She is among four individuals from a single Tehran apartment building—including her husband, Mohammadreza Majid Asl—who were condemned to the gallows and had their properties confiscated in a move activists call a systematic attempt to instill public terror.
The regime’s judiciary has accused the group of violent acts, including the use of explosives, throwing concrete blocks from rooftops, and disrupting national security. A fifth defendant, a relative named Amir Hemmati, received a nearly six-year prison sentence for “assembly and collusion.” Rights groups, including the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), have slammed the judicial process as opaque and based on forced confessions, noting that thousands of others remain detained or injured following the vicious suppression of the January uprising.
International human rights bodies are now being urged to take immediate action as the Iranian government ramps up its execution machinery. While no official date has been set for Hemmati’s hanging, the threat follows a month in which at least 13 political executions were already carried out. These developments come amid heightened regional tensions, with the regime reportedly weaponizing the judicial system to silence domestic dissent as it faces mounting pressure from both internal opposition and external conflict.
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