Who is Erfan Soltani, protester due to be executed in Iran?

A man arrested in connection with the current wave of protests in Iran has been sentenced to death and has been told he will be executed, his family and a human rights group said.

Erfan Soltani, 26, was arrested last Thursday in the city of Fardis, just west of Tehran. Days later, authorities notified his family that his execution was scheduled for Wednesday, without providing any additional details, according to the Norway-based Kurdish human rights group Hengaw.

On Wednesday, Hengaw said he had “serious and ongoing concerns about Soltani’s right to life” but that his execution had been postponed based on information obtained through relatives.

Iran’s judiciary has not yet commented on Sultani’s case or announced any executions in connection with the protests. The government-imposed internet blackout also made it difficult to obtain information about his condition and that of others potentially in a similar situation.

Hengaw’s Awyer Shekhi told the BBC he feared there would be “many” cases like Soltani’s, highlighting the scale and pace of violent crackdowns by Iranian authorities compared to previous protests.

On Tuesday, one of Sultani’s relatives told BBC Persian that the court handed down the death penalty “in an extremely rapid process, in just two days.”

Soltani resides in Fardis, Karaj, where he owns a clothing store. Hengaw said in a statement that he was arrested at his “private residence.”

Iranian authorities reportedly did not provide Soltani’s family with further information about his case, only suggesting that he was arrested in connection with a protest.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Shekhi said his sister, a lawyer, tried to follow the case but authorities told her there was nothing to follow.

“He is just someone who is against the current situation in Iran… and now he has been sentenced to death for expressing his opinion.”

Shekhi said that inmates sentenced to death in Iran are usually visited by their loved ones one last time before they are executed.

He stated that Iranian authorities told the family that they would allow Erfan to meet before his execution, but he has not been allowed to have any contact with his family since his arrest.

According to Shekhi, there was a “high probability” that other people in Iran were in a similar situation to Sultani, but there was little information about them due to the internet shutdown.

President Donald Trump said the United States would take “very strong action” against Iran if Iran executes protesters and told Iranians to “CONTINUE PROTESTING” on the Truth Social platform. He also said he was canceling all meetings with Iranian officials “until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. ON THE WAY TO HELP.”

He said his administration has since been told from a “good source” that “the killings in Iran have stopped and there are no execution plans.”

Authorities in Tehran imposed an internet blackout last Thursday as protests escalated and authorities stepped up their deadly crackdown.

The BBC and many other international news organizations are also unable to report from inside Iran, making information difficult to obtain and verify.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it has confirmed that despite the power outage, 2,417 protesters have been killed so far, as well as 12 children and 10 unrelated civilians. The group said about 150 people affiliated with security forces or the government were also killed.

According to HRANA, at least 18,434 protesters were arrested during the events.

Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei has promised swift legal action against those he calls “rebels”. According to Mohseni-Ejei, “those who commit terrorist acts must be given priority in trial and punishment.”

He said on Wednesday that authorities plan to hold public hearings for some key figures involved in recent events, with the hearings open to the media.

But Hengaw said Iran’s handling of the Soltani case “was a clear violation of international human rights law,” adding: “The hasty and opaque handling of this case has raised concerns about the use of the death penalty as a tool to suppress public protests.”

“Erfan is the first protester to be sentenced to death, but he will not be the last,” the US State Department said on its Persian-language X account.

The protests, which reportedly spread to more than 180 cities and towns in all 31 provinces, were sparked by anger over the depreciation of the Iranian currency and the rising cost of living.

These quickly expanded into demands for political change and became one of the most serious challenges to the religious order since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

At least 12 men sentenced to death in Iran in connection with the 2022 “Women, Life, Freedom” protests have been executed in the past three years.

Nationwide unrest triggered by death in custody Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman accused by the morality police of wearing an “inappropriate” headscarf.

Human rights groups say the last such execution took place on September 6, when Mehran Bahramyan was hanged in Isfahan.

The Norway-based Iranian Human Rights group reported at the time that authorities tortured Bahramian to extract a confession and that he did not receive a fair trial.

The statement stated that he was sentenced to death by the court in January 2024 on the charge of “enmity against God” for allegedly killing a member of the Revolutionary Guard during a protest in Semirom in December 2022.