The Iranian shopkeeper who was detained for taking part in an anti-government protest is still at ‘high risk’ of execution and may be facing torture in jail, a human rights group has warned.
Erfan Soltani, 26, was set to face execution on Wednesday after he was tried, convicted and sentenced for taking part in a protest on Thursday last week.
Following threats of military action from US President Donald Trump if the regime began hanging protestors, Iran confirmed that Soltani would not face the death sentence, but the Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights has warned that he is still in danger.
Sources close to the Soltani family told the Norway-based rights group that ‘the sentence is just postponed’, not withdrawn, contrary to claims made by Iranian officials in the media.
‘We are still worried about his life,’ Arina Moradi told the Daily Mail. She said executions can happen quickly after sentencing, but she has also ‘seen cases where they were delayed and unclear for years, but all of a sudden they implemented the sentence’.
Erfan is currently being held in the Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj, where Moradi said ‘torture is very possible’.
‘Many political prisoners, almost all of them, face torture and forced confession, so we can say that it might be the case in Erfan’s situation.’
She added that in many cases, Iranian authorities ‘use this forced confession to carry out the sentence’, even if the prisoner later denies the charge in a second trial or in the presence of a lawyer.
A death toll reported by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has increased little since Wednesday, currently standing at 2,677 people, including 2,478 protesters and 163 people identified as people affiliated with the government.
Erfan Soltani, 26, was set to face execution on Wednesday after he was tried, convicted and sentenced for taking part in a protest on Thursday last week
The courtyard of the Forensic Diagnostic and Laboratory Centre of Tehran Province in Kahrizak on January 12, with dozens of bodies in bodybags laid out for family members
Protesters set fire to makeshift barricades near a religious centre on January 10, 2026
The group said the number of people with severe injuries stood at 2,677, while the number of detainees is 19,097.
The casualty numbers dwarf the death toll from previous bouts of unrest that have been suppressed by the state.
About Soltani, Moradi said his case is just one of thousands.
‘We are really worried about thousands of others who were detained after this protest, and we know that there will be more death sentences eventually – especially as the Iranian judicial authorities publicly threatened protesters and called them terrorists,’ she said.
She added that it has been difficult for Hengaw to resume any contact with its sources close to the Soltani family because of the ongoing internet shutdown.
She said regime officials are raiding people’s homes and stealing their satellites to prevent the public having access to communication with the outside world.
In the city of Marivan, in the Kurdistan province, she said up to 50 houses were raided by officials.
Moradi said the Soltani family is under a lot of ‘pressure’ due to the fact that the Iranian authorities publicly responded to the case and denied the death sentence.
When asked if his relatives were in danger, she said ‘definitely’.
‘[The regime] has done this before. They have arrested family members when the pressure is too much.’
On Thursday, the judiciary said Soltani is being charged with ‘colluding against the country’s internal security and propaganda activities against the regime’ but that the death penalty does not apply to such charges if they are confirmed by a court.
It came after Trump said he had been told by ‘very important sources on the other side’ the killings of protesters in Iran had been halted, and that executions would not go ahead.
He had earlier warned clerics America would take ‘very strong action’ when asked what he would do if the Iranian regime started executing captured protesters, adding: ‘If they hang them you’re going to see something.’
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi later said there would be ‘no hanging today or tomorrow,’ in an interview with US network Fox News.
Footage of people’s self-defense and disarming of security forces – evening of January 11, 2026, Gohardasht, Karaj
Graphic videos showed bodies lined up in the Kahrizak morgue south of Tehran, wrapped in black bags as distraught relatives searched for loved ones.
Moradi said families of killed protestors are being forced to pay to receive the bodies of their children.
If they refuse the payment, they will be pressured to make a forced confession on state television, saying their children were killed by protestors and that they were pro-government and pro-Basij – a volunteer paramilitary force operating under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
‘We have a few cases where the families were just trying to steal their kids’ bodies [from the morgue],’ Moradi said.
‘It’s very horrifying.’
‘One family told us they almost forget the pain of losing their loved ones because they are so busy with just recovering the body,’ she added.
She said there was a high security presence around Iran, ‘even in some Kurdish cities where there were no major protests’.
Now, residents report passing through checkpoints between cities, where they will be heavily interrogated by officials.
A 40-year-old protestor arrested during recent demonstrations died as a result of severe torture by Iranian government forces, Hengaw said.
Soran Feyzizadeh, a Kurdish citizen originally from Saqqez and a resident of Bijar, was detained on January 7 during unrest in Bijar.
He was transferred to one of the city’s detention facilities, where he was subjected to ‘severe torture’ and subsequently killed, the group said, citing a source close to the family.
On January 9, the family received a phone call informing them of Feyzizadeh’s death, but his body was barely recognisable due to the extent of the injuries incurred through repeated blows.
‘Like many other families of victims of the recent crackdown, Feyzizadeh’s family was forced to pay money to retrieve his body,’ Hengaw said.
‘He was buried under heavy security measures at Aichi Cemetery in Saqqez, without permission to hold any funeral or mourning ceremony.’
Families bid farewell to their loved ones in bodybags
Documented footage shows the use of firearms against protesters in Iran
US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had been told the killings of protesters in Iran had been halted, but added that he would ‘watch it and see’ about threatened military action
Iran’s deadly crackdown appears to have broadly quelled protests for now, according to Hengaw and residents, as state media reported more arrests on Friday in the shadow of US threats to intervene if killing continues.
After Trump’s repeated threats of military action against Iran in support of protesters, fears of a US attack have retreated since Wednesday, when Trump said he’d been told killings in the crackdown were easing.
US allies including Saudi Arabia and Qatar conducted intense diplomacy with Washington this week to prevent a US strike, warning of consequences for the wider region that would ultimately impact the United States, a Gulf official said.
The White House said on Thursday that Trump is closely monitoring the situation on the ground, adding that the president and his team have warned Tehran there would be ‘grave consequence’ if killings linked to its crackdown continue.
Trump understands that 800 scheduled executions were halted, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt added, saying the president was keeping ‘all of his options on the table’.
The protests erupted on December 28 over soaring inflation in Iran, whose economy has been crippled by sanctions, before spiralling into one of the biggest challenges yet to the clerical establishment that has run Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
With information flows from Iran obstructed by an internet blackout, several residents of Tehran said the capital had been quiet since Sunday.
They said drones were flying over the city, where they’d seen no sign of protests on Thursday or Friday.
Hengaw said that there had been no protest gatherings since Sunday, saying ‘the security environment remains highly restrictive’.
‘Our independent sources confirm a heavy military and security presence in cities and towns where protests previously took place, as well as in several locations that did not experience major demonstrations,’ the group said in comments to Reuters.
Iranian demonstrators gather in a street during a protest over the collapse of the currency’s value, in Tehran on January 8, 2026
Clashes between protesters and security forces in Urmia, in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, on January 14, 2026
Another resident in a northern city on the Caspian Sea said the streets also appeared calm. The residents declined to be identified for their safety.
There were, however, indications of unrest in some areas.
Hengaw reported that a female nurse was killed by direct gunfire from government forces during protests in Karaj, west of Iran.
The state-affiliated Tasnim news outlet reported that rioters set fire to a local education office in Falavarjan County, in central Isfahan Province, on Thursday.
An elderly resident of a town in Iran’s northwestern region, where many Kurdish Iranians live and which has been the focus for many of the biggest flare-ups, said sporadic protests had continued, though not as intensely.
Describing scenes of violence earlier in the protests, she said: ‘I have not scenes like that before.’
The state-owned Press TV cited Iran’s police chief as saying calm had been restored across the country.
Iranian authorities have described the unrest as the most violent yet, accusing foreign enemies of fomenting it and armed people they have identified as terrorists of targeting security forces and carrying out other attacks.
The state-affiliated Tasnim news outlet reported what it described as the arrest of a large number of leaders of recent riots in the western province of Kermanshah.
Tasnim also reported the arrest of five people accused of vandalising a gas station and a base belonging to the Basij – a branch of the security forces often used to quell unrest – in the southeastern city of Kerman.
Also on Friday, state television broadcast the funerals of members of the security forces in Semnan, northern Iran, and Semirom, central Iran