Trump criticizes Iran over executions of protesters — Euronews
US President Donald Trump said that Iranian authorities are executing protesters on a scale not seen before and that the country is experiencing a humanitarian crisis of “epic proportions.” In a post on the Truth Social platform, he also claimed that Tehran is no longer able to finance a significant part of its armed forces.
As Euronews reports, Trump wrote that the Islamic Republic of Iran is “killing protesters, even when they are not protesting,” and called for this to stop immediately.
Trump’s previous statements
In January, warning of possible executions, Trump said the United States would take “very strong action” if they were carried out. A few days later, he said that, according to reliable sources, Iranian authorities had halted the executions of more than 800 detained protesters. Iranian officials did not confirm this claim.
In April, the US president said that eight Iranian women depicted in a photograph circulated online had been sentenced to death and called for their release. The following day, he reported that they had been pardoned. At the same time, a Euronews Persian investigation citing two independent human rights organizations found that only one of these women, Beita Hemmati, had received a death sentence.
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Data from human rights defenders and the UN
On August 12, 32 countries, including France, the United Kingdom and Canada, condemned Iran’s use of the death penalty to “suppress dissent” in a joint statement. They called for an immediate halt to executions and the release of people arbitrarily detained.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said that Tehran is using executions to create fear. According to his data, since March 19, 2026, at least 56 people have been executed in Iran on national security-related charges; 27 of them were executed in cases related to the January protests. More than 100 people, he said, are at risk of execution.
The Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center recorded at least 901 executions in Iran during the first seven months of 2026. Of these, 56 people were executed on political or national security-related charges, and at least 29 in connection with the January protests.
The protests began after the collapse of the Iranian rial in December 2025 and spread to more than 180 cities. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council acknowledged that more than 3,000 people were killed during the suppression of the protests on January 8 and 9. The UN special rapporteur on Iran estimated the death toll at at least 5,000, while human rights groups and sources inside the country suggested it may have exceeded 32,000.
