Iran imposes cruel sentences on 20-year-old twins after brutal torture

Ten defendants were sentenced to death, while the group collectively received 256 years in prison, according to HRANA.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Iran has sentenced 20-year-old Taraneh Rahimi to death over her alleged role in anti-regime protests in Isfahan, while her twin sister, Romina Rahimi, received 36 years in prison in a case their family says involved torture and forced confessions.

Branch 1 of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court also imposed an additional 11-year prison term on Taraneh, the Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. The rulings remain initial-stage verdicts.

Both women are among 16 defendants prosecuted in the “Isfahan Shohada Square” case.

Ten defendants were sentenced to death, while the group collectively received 256 years in prison, according to HRANA.

The sisters were 19, attending high school and living with their mother when masked men detained them about a month after they participated in anti-regime demonstrations in Isfahan, their US-based cousin said.

Their relatives spent months searching courts, hospitals and government offices after receiving no explanation of where they had been taken.

Four months after the arrests, their mother, Marzieh Nourmohammadi, visited them at Dowlatabad Prison. Masoud Nourmohammadi, the twins’ cousin, told The Guardian that both had swollen and bruised faces and injuries to their elbows, hands and feet. He said guards pulled them by their hair while moving them between cells, causing significant hair loss, and that they had been held in solitary confinement.

Their family alleges the treatment was intended to extract confessions. Nourmohammadi told The Guardian that Taraneh was threatened that guards would rape Romina in front of her unless she confessed.

Taraneh later told the court that admissions attributed to her had been obtained through torture.

Radio Farda separately reported allegations of physical and psychological abuse, while the Hana Human Rights Organization told Fox News Digital it had verified the torture claims.

Iran has also sharply increased its use of capital punishment. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran recorded 901 executions during the first seven months of 2026, including 56 people executed on political or national-security charges.

IranIranian protestersIranian regime