According to a New York Post report, Iran’s regime is moving to execute Bita Hemmati, who opposition and rights groups say would become the first woman put to death over the nationwide protests that erupted in January 2026, in a chilling new sign that the mullahs are using the gallows to crush dissent.
The case was disclosed Tuesday by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an opposition group, which said Hemmati and three others were handed death sentences by Branch 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court after a rushed case tied to the anti-regime unrest.
NCRI said Hemmati’s husband, Mohammadreza Majidi Asl, along with Behrouz Zamaninejad and Kourosh Zamaninejad, also received death sentences and had property confiscated.
According to the regime’s own charges, the four were accused of using weapons and explosives, injuring security forces, throwing bottles, concrete blocks, and incendiary materials from rooftops, damaging public property, joining protest gatherings, and sending material allegedly aimed at undermining state security.
That is the regime’s case.
What is far less clear is whether any semblance of due process existed at all. UN experts warned in February that Iran must halt all death sentences and executions tied to the nationwide demonstrations and disclose the fate of detainees swept up in the crackdown.
That warning now looks grimly prescient.
Iran’s use of capital punishment has surged to staggering levels. A joint report released this week by Iran Human Rights and ECPM said the regime carried out at least 1,639 executions in 2025, a 68% jump from 2024 and the highest recorded annual total since 1989. The report said at least 48 women were executed last year.
That figure is executions, not merely death sentences, and it underscores the scale of Tehran’s killing machine. Rights groups have also warned that hundreds of protesters remain at risk after being hit with capital charges tied to the January unrest.
Iran to execute the first woman over widespread anti-regime demonstrations https://t.co/cIYwy0VgIk pic.twitter.com/h2GsZ4Ky7g
— New York Post (@nypost) April 15, 2026
