U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran will not execute eight women accused of participating in protests against the Iranian regime.
Trump made the announcement on Truth Social on Wednesday afternoon, stating the eight protesters were scheduled to be executed that night.
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He said four of them will be released, and the other four will be sentenced to a month in prison.
“I very much appreciate that Iran, and its leaders, respected my request, as President of the United States, and terminated the planned execution,” he added.
A day earlier, Trump had asked for the release of the women on Truth Social, reposting a post on X by pro-Israel activist Eyal Yakoby.
According to an Associated Press report, the Iranian judiciary had responded to Trump’s post promptly, denying that any of them were about to be hanged, saying some were already released.
According to The Times of Israel report, citing a human rights group, two of the eight women had already been released by the time Trump issued the request.
Who are the women?
Though Trump doesn’t name the women in his Truth Social post, one of them was identified as Bita Hemmati , a demonstrator who participated in anti-government protests earlier this year.
Hemmati was accused of numerous charges, including using explosives and weapons, throwing objects such as concrete blocks and bottles, and “harming stationed forces on-site,” according to a news release from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
Her husband, Mohammadreza Majid Asl, was also sentenced to death, along with two other men who lived in the same apartment building as the couple.
They were “subjected to pressure during interrogation,” and concerns had been raised regarding the possibility of forced confessions, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) .
Other women include Diana Taherabadi, 16, and Mahboubeh Shabani, 33, both arrested in February for resisting the regime, along with Ensieh Nejati, a Kurdish women’s rights activist sentenced to death early last year.
According to HRANA, Iranian authorities have arrested more than 50,000 people in its crackdown on nationwide protests. It also pins the death toll from the government crackdown to at least 6,159 people .
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A recent report by two European non-governmental organizations said Iran executed at least 1,639 people last year.
“The death penalty in Iran is used as a political tool of oppression and repression, with ethnic minorities and other marginalized groups disproportionately represented among those executed,” said Raphael Chenuil-Hazan, executive director of Together Against the Death Penalty, in the report.
While most of those executed were convicted of drug-related offences or murder, at least 57 were convicted of security-related charges, the report said.
“They include 2 protesters, 18 political prisoners, 13 espionage defendants and a person convicted of financial corruption,” it noted.
— with files from Denette Wilford and Brian Towie