Imagine living through a war. Streets, buildings and neighbourhoods are being bombed. You see a place reduced to ruins by a strike and take a photograph — to keep a record, to remember, or to share with others what is happening. In Iran today, that photograph can become part of a case that ends in a death sentence. This is what happened to Hassan Amiri after a photograph of a bombed site found on his phone became part of the basis for a case that led to a death sentence. Hassan and his twin brother Hossein were arrested in March 2026. They were reportedly tortured into confessing that further footage existed on a laptop they did not even own. Tried by Branch 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on charges of “collaboration with Israel”, they were sentenced to death. They remain in Ghezel Hesar Prison. Espionage for Israel was already punishable by death in Iran under a 2020 law, but the 2025 espionage law (Law on Intensification of Punishment for Espionage and Cooperation with the Zionist Regime and Hostile States Against National Security and Interests), rushed through parliament after the twelve-day war in June 2025, goes much further. It attaches the death penalty to vaguely defined ‘operational actions’, ‘intelligence activity’ and even ‘direct or indirect assistance’ deemed to benefit hostile states. It criminalises sending films, images or information to foreign media, and the possession of satellite internet devices such as Starlink. Since the beginning of 2026, at least 11 people have been executed under the espionage law, and others face imminent execution. When criminal provisions are drafted in broad and ambiguous terms, their application becomes especially dangerous in politically charged times. No emergency, no conflict, no security claim can justify putting people to death for taking photographs or sharing information. And allegations of national-security offences do not suspend the requirements of evidence, due process, fair trial and protection from torture. Together with other UN experts, I have urged the Iranian authorities to suspend this law. My mandate’s communication about Hasan and Hosein Amiri case: spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe… No response has yet been received from the Iranian authorities. My mandate’s communication on the 2025 espionage law spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe…

Mohsen Eslamkhah, a Kurd from Bukan, was 16 when the Woman, Life, Freedom protests began in 2022. Like many other young people, he took to the streets to call for freedom, dignity and change. In February 2026 a Revolutionary Court sentenced him to death for moharebeh (enmity against God) for acts alleged to have taken place when he was a child. He remains on death row. International law leaves no room here. Key treaties ratified by Iran prohibit the death penalty for offences committed under 18.  Mohsen is not alone. My mandate has received reports of others facing execution for offences allegedly committed when they were children. Four years on, many young people once again took to the streets, calling for a better future they felt was slipping away from them. Shervin Bagherian Jebeli was one of them. He had turned 18 days only days before security forces raided his home in Isfahan at night in January 2026. His family heard nothing for a week. Then State television aired his confession, recorded under interrogation, before any trial. In it, he is told he is charged with moharebeh. He does not appear to know what the word means. He was sentenced to death with 11 others in a single closed hearing, with no clarity as to what each is accused of doing. He remains on death row. The rule on children exists because young people are developing and capable of change, and that does not stop on a birthday. The death sentences against Mohsen and the others who were children at the time are prohibited outright. Shervin’s case should make us deeply uneasy: a death sentence for a boy who had been an adult for a matter of days. But his age is not the only reason he should not be executed. A week of enforced disappearance, an apparently coerced confession broadcast before trial, and a closed hearing that never said what he personally is accused of having done are each reason enough. Respecting the prohibition on executing children is the least Iranian authorities can do; halting these executions is what the authorities must do. A young person’s future should not end with a death sentence. My Mandate’s Communication on Mohsen Eslamkhah spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe… Response by the Iranian authorities spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe… My Mandate’s communication on Shervin Bagherian Jebeli spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMRe… Response by the government received but not published yet. It will be available here later today - spcommreports.ohchr.org/TmSe…