(From Radio Free Europe, 7/29/2026.)
Iranian writers, filmmakers, and other cultural figures have joined the local and international outcry against a surge of executions in the country, using the hashtag “Do Not Execute” to criticize the continued use of the death penalty in a crackdown on political dissent from mass protests that shook the country in January.
Following two executions on July 28 that marked the first public hangings to take place in a year, writer and novelist Hossein Sanapour condemned the actions, criticizing what he described as opaque judicial proceedings and arguing that the authorities were attempting to suppress public anger following the January protests. (From Radio Free Europe.)
Iran’s judicial authorities executed Abolfazl Sepahi Badjani and Amirhossein Safari Hosseinabadi on July 28 in the city of Isfahan. The two men had been sentenced to death in connection with unrest during the January protests.
Since the start of the war with the United States and Israel on February 28, Iran has witnessed a surge in executions of people human rights groups consider political prisoners — from demonstrators to alleged members of banned groups and those convicted of spying.
In a statement shared online on July 29, Sanapour voiced similar concerns, saying that the executions were being carried out despite widespread anxiety and hardship caused by the country’s current conditions.
“With all the despair that our words will be heard or have an effect, and only so that they know how strongly we oppose this type of proceedings, trials, and executions, we say: Do not execute,” Sanapour wrote.
Actor and director Homayoun Ghanizadeh also criticized the continued use of executions during a period of crisis, writing sarcastically on social media that if war, poverty, deprivation, imprisonment, and other pressures had failed to affect society, then “the news of an execution — especially a public one” — would supposedly bring hope and joy.
