Iran prepares to execute a protester as Trump threatens ‘strong action’

By ABDI LATIF DAHIR and SANAM MAHOOZI

Iran was expected Wednesday to execute a 26-year-old protester who was sentenced to death just days after his detention, according to human rights groups and family members. President Donald Trump has threatened “strong action” if Iran carries out any such death sentences.

As Iran tries to crush anti-regime protests that began more than two weeks ago, the country’s chief justice, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, urged speedy trials and executions of “rioters” — a term officials have used to refer to the protesters — according to a video shared Wednesday by the semiofficial news agency Tasnim.

“Those elements who beheaded people in the streets or burned people alive must be tried and punished as quickly as possible,” he said. “If we don’t do it fast, it won’t have the same impact.”

The protester slated for execution, identified as Erfan Soltani, would be the first to be put to death during the current wave of anti-government unrest that began Dec. 28. He was arrested Jan. 8 at his home in an area west of the capital, Tehran, and has been denied access to a lawyer or other means to mount a defense, according to the Norway-based Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.

A statement by the group said his family was also kept unaware of the judicial proceedings and was allowed only a brief, final visit before the scheduled execution Wednesday. His family learned just four days after his detention that his execution had been scheduled.

On Tuesday, the family said Soltani had never used violence and only sought basic freedoms for Iranians.

Since late last month, Iran has been rocked by the largest protests in years against its authoritarian rulers.

Trump has made a series of comments pledging support for the protesters and threatening strikes on Iran if its forces kill demonstrators. Late Tuesday, as reports spread of an imminent execution of an Iranian protester, Trump warned of consequences if it went ahead.

“We will take very strong action if they do such a thing,” he said in an interview with CBS Evening News. “When they start killing thousands of people, and now you are telling me about hanging, we will see how that works for them. It’s not going to work out good.”

Also Wednesday, the U.S. military was evacuating an unspecified number of nonessential personnel from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar as a precautionary measure, according to two U.S. military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. Iran had fired at the facility in June in retaliation for U.S. strikes on several critical nuclear sites.

The latest moves have heightened fears of another U.S. strike on Iran in a region already on tenterhooks after multiple wars in the past two years. And senior Iranian officials have responded with threats and vitriol aimed at the United States.

“The President of the United States, who repeatedly speaks about the unsuccessful attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, would do better to also mention the Iranian missiles that crushed the U.S. Al Udeid base,” Ali Shamkhani, a senior Iranian official and an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Wednesday in a post on the social platform X. “This would certainly help create a more realistic understanding of Iran’s will and capability to respond to any aggression.”

The protest movement was initially fueled by anger over the economy, which has been battered by years of corruption, government mismanagement and crippling Western sanctions. It quickly evolved into a broader anti-government uprising against the clerical establishment that has ruled since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

More than 2,400 people have been killed so far, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, or HRANA, a rights organization in Washington. The Norway-based Iran Human Rights said more than 3,400 had been killed and thousands injured.

Even government officials have acknowledged as many as 3,000 people dead. But they have put their focus on the security forces who have been killed.

The flow of information about the protests has been severely restricted by an internet blackout that has lasted nearly a week, most likely obscuring the true scale and toll of the unrest. Protests usually pick up in the late afternoons and evening, and it was still unclear Wednesday where the latest protests were taking place and how large they were.

After the protests began last month, Iranian officials initially struck a conciliatory tone, saying they were open to dialogue with demonstrators. But as the protests spread and people began to call for the downfall of the regime, they hardened their stance, shut down the internet and cracked down with lethal force.