ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iran's Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of Arman Marefati, a Kurdish man arrested during January's nationwide anti-government protests in Tehran, a human rights monitor reported Monday, raising fears of his imminent execution.
Marefati, originally from Saqqez in western Iran's Kurdistan province, was sentenced to death by Branch 15 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court on charges including acting against national security and involvement in setting fire to a mosque and a religious seminary, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported.
However, Marefati denied setting fire to the mosque during his trial, according to an account published in February by the Iranian judiciary-affiliated Mizan news agency.
"I did not set fire to the mosque. I only brought two garbage bins, and I did nothing else," he told the judge, according to Mizan.
The ruling comes amid growing international concern over Iran's use of capital punishment against people arrested during the January protests. Two Kurdish men prosecuted alongside Marefati in the same case were executed in June, while rights organizations have documented dozens of other executions linked to the demonstrations.
According to Mizan's account of the February hearing, prosecutors initially charged Marefati with conspiring to commit crimes against domestic security through his participation in the protests. However, the presiding judge invoked Article 280 of Iran's Criminal Procedure Code to change the charges to include conducting operations against national security on behalf of Israel and the United States, entering religious premises with the intention of causing destruction, and involvement in arson.
The case concerned the burning of Jafari Mosque and the Imam Hadi religious seminary in Tehran during the January unrest. Iranian judicial authorities alleged that the incident caused approximately 50 billion tomans in damage.
Marefati, who worked at a fruit and vegetable market in Tehran before his arrest, was transferred from the Greater Tehran Penitentiary to Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, Alborz province, in June. He remains detained there, according to HRANA.
His co-defendants, Ashkan Maleki and Mehrdad Mohammadinia, both Kurdish men from Qorveh in Kurdistan province, were executed on June 1. Iran's judiciary confirmed their executions, accusing them of deliberately setting fire to the mosque and damaging public property.
Amnesty International subsequently condemned their executions, saying they were carried out without advance notice to their families or lawyers. The organization also warned that the offenses for which they were convicted did not meet the threshold for capital punishment under international human rights standards.
The January protests began in late December 2025 over deteriorating economic conditions before spreading across Iran and escalating into widespread anti-government demonstrations. Amnesty International accused Iranian security forces of carrying out mass unlawful killings during a crackdown on January 8 and 9, followed by thousands of arrests and a nationwide internet shutdown.
