Three Iranian Teens on Death Row—and the Families Now Living Under the Shadow of the Gallows

At 5:12 a.m., the prison phone rang again. The caller never gave his name. He didn’t need to. In Evin Prison, the sound of that ring carries a single meaning: tonight, or tomorrow at dawn, the rope may fall. For the family on the other end, sleep has become a dangerous luxury.

Across Iran, at least three teenagers sit on death row today for crimes committed when they were under 18, according to documentation compiled by Amnesty International and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center. Their cases differ in detail—one tied to a street fight, another to a coerced confession, a third to a family dispute that spiraled—but the outcome threatens to be the same. Execution by hanging. A sentence Iran continues to impose in defiance of binding international law.

This story is about those teenagers. It is also about the families who now live under the shadow of the gallows—and about the international machinery straining, sometimes successfully, to keep the noose from tightening.

The teenagers the law refuses to see as children

Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Iran in 1994, executing anyone for a crime committed under the age of 18 is strictly prohibited. Iran’s penal code, however, leaves a loophole wide enough to kill through. Judges may impose the death penalty if they determine the defendant had “mature understanding” at the time of the crime—a subjective test that places enormous power in a single courtroom.

“Ali” was 17 when a fistfight in a provincial town ended with another boy’s death. Court records reviewed by Human Rights Watch show no forensic evidence tying him directly to the fatal blow. He confessed after 11 hours of interrogation without a lawyer present. His family sold farmland to hire a private attorney; it wasn’t enough. In 2023, Iran’s Supreme Court upheld his death sentence.

“Reza,” arrested at 16, faced charges stemming from a robbery gone wrong. His mother says he can barely read. Psychological evaluations requested by his lawyer never made it into the case file. A judge cited “social awareness” as grounds for execution.

The third teenager, “Mahdi,” was 15 when a domestic altercation ended in tragedy. Under Iran’s qisas (retribution) system, the victim’s family holds the power to demand execution or grant forgiveness in exchange for blood money. Mahdi’s fate now depends less on law than on negotiation—and on money his family doesn’t have.

Amnesty International estimates that at least **24 juvenile offenders were on death row in Iran at the