Iran’s brutal response to anti-Khamenei protests intensifies with the impending execution of young demonstrator Irfan Soltani. At 26, he’s set to be hanged Wednesday for joining rallies that have paralyzed the nation, convicted of ‘enmity against God’ in a lightning-fast judicial process.
Arrested January 8, Soltani vanished into the regime’s detention system. His family, kept in the dark, learned of the verdict only recently—no trial details provided. A heartbreaking 10-minute visit was permitted, shadowed by dire warnings against media contact or arrests for the entire family.
Experts decry this as emblematic of Iran’s use of capital punishment to smother unrest, potentially the first such execution tied to these protests. With communications blacked out for 130+ hours, reports from 280+ sites reveal 2,000+ deaths and 20,000 arrests. Starlink circumvention efforts met fierce resistance: signals jammed, equipment confiscated in aggressive operations.
Three weeks into the upheaval, the regime’s playbook—blackouts, mass detentions, and now executions—aims to break the protest momentum. Yet, resilient voices persist, smuggling out stories of defiance. Global calls for sanctions and diplomacy grow louder, but time is running out for Soltani and countless others.