Maybe the Times’ Iran team is attempting to ingratiate itself in hopes of obtaining permission to make a minder-accompanied trip to the Islamic Republic to cover the eventual funeral of Mojtaba Khamenei.

By Ira Stoll, The Washington Free Beacon

The Associated Press says “Public executions are not uncommon in Iran.”

The watchdog group Iran Human Rights counted 459 such executions between 2008 and 2025, frequently featuring large audiences, including children.

United Against Nuclear Iran reports that Iran “regularly carries out executions in public. In many of these cases, the victim is publicly hanged from a construction crane, an especially slow and painful execution method.”

And that doesn’t even mention the extrajudicial killings of pro-democracy protesters.

President Trump has said between 30,000 and 52,000 of them were murdered this year by the Iranian regime, many shot in the forehead.

So how did the New York Times spin its own news article on two recent executions? With the absurd, false claim that “Iran has long been one of the world’s most frequent users of capital punishment, but public executions are extremely rare.”

The New York Times describes public executions in Iran as “extremely rare.”

The article appeared under a joint byline. Leily Nikounazar is, according to her LinkedIn profile, a 2010 graduate of “Tehran’s Faculty of News.”

Sanjana Varghese’s New York Times bio says she has freelanced for Al Jazeera, the Qatar-owned outlet that has harbored Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.

Her main job before the New York Times was at Airwars, which is funded by anti-Israel nonprofits including George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Neither Nikounazar nor Varghese, who lives in London but “grew up between Canada and Bahrain,” immediately returned my queries about whether they planned a correction.

Adverbs are frequently trouble in news articles. The Times might have gotten away with calling public executions unusual or rare. But “extremely rare” pushes the envelope in a way that makes the Times‘ extremely slanted coverage extremely obvious.

Maybe the Times Iran team is attempting to ingratiate itself in hopes of obtaining permission to make a minder-accompanied trip to the Islamic Republic to cover the eventual funeral of Mojtaba Khamenei, the same way it covered the funeral this month of Ali Khamenei with two Times video journalists, a photographer, and a correspondent.

(“We had two handlers with us throughout the trip … he would tell us we could not photograph certain places or say we couldn’t go to certain places without explaining why. … Iran contains multitudes. … I came away wishing we had more time and opportunity to document that complexity,” Times Middle East correspondent Abdi Latif Dahir said earlier this month.)

In the past, the New York Times has been more accurate about the issue. The Times itself reported in 2012:

“Executions are very public events in Iran, with authorities setting up building cranes at the scene of the crime or on the central square of the city where the crime took place. … The convicted criminal is often brought in around dusk, arriving at the square where a crane or scaffolding with ropes and nooses await him. Families, both of the victim and the convicted cheer and wail, often there are last minute pleas for a pardon. An Islamic judge, always present at the scene, will also officially ask the family of the victim for forgiveness. Usually crowds try to influence such decisions by calling for forgiveness or for the execution to take place.”

In 2012, the Times went so far as to publish a slideshow of the pictures of the hangings, preceded by a disclaimer or trigger warning: “Please note that this slideshow includes some graphic images.”

There was a pause in public executions during the COVID pandemic, but that had more to do with an attempt to avoid mass gatherings than with any liberalization of Iranian practices.

An Iranian judge in 2008 banned public executions and restricted news coverage, but the “ban,” like the so-called fatwa against nuclear weapons, was more public relations than reality, and it came with enough exceptions to drive a portable gallows through.

The annual report by Iran Human Rights on the death penalty in Iran notes that “the number of public executions increased dramatically after 2010, reaching an annual average of 50 to 60 between 2011-2015.”

In 2025, the report says, “11 executions were carried out in public spaces, where children were amongst the spectators, a practice intended to spread fear and reinforce the state’s policy of intimidation.”

A graphic from Iran Human Rights 2025 report on the death penalty in Iran. It doesn’t include extrajudicial killings by the government.

According to the report, among the crimes punishable by the death penalty under Iran’s Islamic law are incest, rape, adultery, consensual gay sex, apostasy, insulting the prophet, and tafkhiz, or intercrural sex where the “active party” is non-Muslim and the “passive party” is Muslim. Approved execution methods include “hanging, firing squads, crucifixion and stoning.”

The post ‘Public executions are extremely rare’ in Iran, the New York Times claims appeared first on World Israel News.

The celebration, held at a private villa, was attended by the Israeli police commissioner and several top-ranking officers.

By Ariel Sharfer, JFeed

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s 50th birthday celebration has become the center of a media firestorm following the unveiling of a custom-designed three-tier cake.

The cake prominently featured a golden hanging noose at its peak, a direct reference to Ben Gvir’s long-standing push to legislate the death penalty for terrorists in Israel.

Directly beneath the noose, the cake bore the Hebrew inscription: “Sometimes dreams come true.”

The imagery, which also included maps of a Greater Israel and symbols of firearms, quickly went viral.

The Qatari-based news outlet Al Jazeera featured a photo of the cake as its lead story, condemning the display as a reflection of “violent policies” and “extremist aspirations” within the Israeli government.

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir marked his 50th birthday with a gift from his wife: a cake depicting a gallows. pic.twitter.com/CLSQhCT1ED

— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 3, 2026

Police Presence Sparks Domestic Backlash

The celebration, held at a private villa, was attended by the Israeli police commissioner and several top-ranking officers.

This high-level police presence has drawn fierce criticism from Israeli media and political figures, who warn against the “politicization” of the nation’s law enforcement.

The controversy comes on the heels of recent statements by former prime minister and current electoral candidate Naftali Bennett.

In recent interviews with Israeli media, Bennett issued a stern warning regarding the independence of the police force, stating that any official who allows political motives to interfere with police conduct will be “immediately dismissed” under his leadership.

Photo: Itamar Ben-Gvir’s spokesman

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