By Kayhan Life Staff
Eighteen people detained during the December and January protests in Isfahan’s historic Kordabad neighborhood have been sentenced to death, while dozens of others have received lengthy prison terms, the Iran Human Rights Society reports.
The group says it withheld the names of those sentenced for an extended period before making them public (see below).
Kordabad is a historic neighborhood on the eastern edge of Isfahan, the capital of the central Iranian province of the same name.
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The Islamic Republic authorities have pursued a harsh crackdown on protesters during and after the December–January unrest. The total number of detainees remains unknown, but human rights groups report thousands of arrests in cities across the country.
Human rights sources have previously reported that hundreds of detainees in various provinces face the death penalty, with the number in Isfahan Province estimated at more than 100. At least 29 people detained during the protests have been executed so far.
The IRS published the names of the 18 people reportedly sentenced to death but stressed that many basic details of the case remain unknown. These include which branch of the judiciary issued the sentences, the judges’ identities, whether the verdicts are final, where the defendants are being held, and how the trials were conducted.
According to the report, one defendant, Mohammad Soleimani, was under 18 when he was arrested. His exact age and date of birth have not been disclosed.
The other 17 people reportedly sentenced to death are Mostafa Nasouhi Dehnavi, Mojtaba Nasouhi Dehnavi, Mohammad Reza Yahyaei, Abolfazl Zarei, Ali-Akbar Kordabadi, Mojtaba Kordabadi, Sirous Ghorbani, Jalil Shokrollahi, Khalil Shokrollahi, Pouya Khalili Mal-Khalifeh, Mojtaba Ghorghani, Vahid Amini, Hadi Dehghani, Ali Aghababaei, Javad Haji Alizadeh, Mojtaba Hajian, and Mohsen Shahbazi.
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In total, about 70 people are said to have received severe sentences in the case. In addition to the 18 death sentences, roughly 40 others reportedly received prison terms ranging from five to 25 years.
The IRS says it does not know when each defendant was arrested or which authorities carried out the arrests.
The defendants’ current places of detention have not been disclosed, and the verdicts have not been made public.
Without this information, it is impossible to independently examine the evidence, the defendants’ arguments, or the judges’ reasoning.
It is also unclear which branch of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court issued the sentences, and the judges have not been identified.
The report does not say whether the rulings are first-instance verdicts or have been upheld by the Supreme Court. The IRS says this distinction is crucial to assessing the risk of imminent executions.
The report provides no details about the number or duration of hearings or whether the defendants were tried individually or as a group. It is also unclear whether they could choose their own lawyers or whether their lawyers had access to the full case files, arrest reports, and evidence the court used.
The IRS argues that issuing death sentences without disclosing these details makes independent monitoring of the proceedings impossible. It adds that families cannot establish the cases’ actual status or determine whether the sentences are close to being carried out.
The report does not explain why dozens of people were arrested in Kordabad.
The IRS says protests spread across Isfahan on Jan. 8 and 9, accompanied by reports of security forces deployed in the streets, gunfire, arrests, and the evacuation of wounded people.
Detailed information about events in Kordabad itself remains scarce.
The exact date that the protests began there is unknown, as are the locations where security forces were stationed and the numbers of people wounded, killed, or detained. It also remains unclear how authorities identified and arrested the defendants.
At the time the report was written, no other credible human rights organization had published information about the case.
However, several social media users claiming to be relatives of some of the named defendants have written that a court hearing took place on Oct. 27 and that no verdict had yet been issued.
