ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The brutal killing of a pro-government religious reciter in Tehran has triggered calls for retribution among supporters of the Islamic Republic, raising concerns that authorities could use the case to justify another wave of arrests, harsh sentences and executions.
Hamidreza Rajabzadeh, a 26-year-old maddah - a Shiite religious reciter - disappeared around two weeks ago. Iranian media reported that footage showing him being tortured and killed later circulated online, while authorities confirmed his abduction and murder. His body was subsequently found on the outskirts of Tehran on Sunday.
Police say five people - four men and one woman - have been detained, including a person described as the main suspect. The motive remains unclear, and authorities have yet to establish who ordered the killing publicly.
According to Rokna News Agency, which focuses on domestic issues and crime in Iran, the investigators found Rajabzadeh had been in contact for around six months with a young female blogger he had met online. Rajabzadeh repeatedly urged the woman to observe the Islamic dress code on her Instagram page and warned her against commenting on political issues he believed she did not understand.
Rokna reported that the woman asked Rajabzadeh to meet her in person on the day he disappeared, and he agreed. Investigators later identified a vehicle leaving the area where the meeting was supposed to take place, after which Rajabzadeh was no longer seen. The investigation subsequently led police to the woman and several men, according to Rokna.
The particularly gruesome nature of Rajabzadeh’s death has prompted numerous pro-government figures and accounts online to demand the execution of those responsible.
Pro-regime figures mocked public personalities who dared to post #NoToExecution messages online following the public hanging of two protesters in Isfahan in recent weeks.
Such calls are significant in a country where the state has repeatedly used similar incidents to instil fear through rushed, politically charged trials and subsequent executions.
The most recent example came in Isfahan, where authorities publicly hanged two protesters, Abolfazl Sepahi Badjani and Amirhossein Safari Hosseinabadi, in Alikhani Square in the early hours of July 28. The two men had been arrested over the January protests and accused of involvement in the killing of members of the security forces in the same square on January 8. Human rights organizsations say Iranian authorities use confessions extracted under torture to justify the execution of political prisoners.
Videos from the scene showed crowds gathering before dawn in an attempt to prevent the executions. Iran Human Rights said security forces dispersed those who gathered, describing the hangings as Iran’s first recorded public executions of 2026.
Two other defendants in the same Isfahan case, Erfan Esfandiari and Gol Mohammad Mohammadi, had already been executed on July 19.
More than 70 people detained over the January protests were facing execution at Isfahan Central Prison alone as of late July, according to the Norway-based rights organization.
Hundreds of others face execution or life imprisonment over their involvement in the September 2022 and January 2026 protests. Many families have kept their loved ones’ cases out of the public eye after threats from the authorities, hoping that silence may improve their chances of receiving clemency.
Another case from the 2022 protests that the state used to justify a wider crackdown was the killing of Basij member Arman Aliverdi in November 2022. Authorities launched a major propaganda campaign around his death and sentenced at least six people to death. Their sentences are currently under review.
The Rajabzadeh case therefore comes amid an already accelerating use of capital punishment.
Iran Human Rights documented at least 1,639 executions in 2025, a 68 percent increase from the previous year and the highest annual total it had recorded since 1989.
At least 444 people were executed during the first seven months of 2026, including 24 protesters and 12 people accused of espionage or collaboration with foreign states. Only 15 percent of those executions were officially announced, according to the organizsation.
Rajabzadeh’s killing is a criminal case whose motive and organizsers remain unknown. But with demands for executions already spreading among supporters of the establishment, the case risks becoming another rallying point for a security apparatus that has repeatedly responded to periods of unrest and violence with mass arrests and the gallows.
