Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 29 September 2026: Mahboubeh Shabani, a 30-year-old woman sentenced to death for helping injured protesters in January, was transferred to a solitary confinement cell at Mashhad Central Prison two days after being notified of her sentence.
According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, Mahboubeh Shabani, a protester on death row, was transferred to the solitary confinement cells of Mashhad (Vakil Abad) Central Prison on 28 September 2026. She was sentenced to death by Branch One of the Mashhad Revolutionary Court on charges of "operational action to strengthen Israel, the United States and agents affiliated with Reza Pahlavi” under the new Espionage Bill. She was informed of her sentence on 26 September.
Mahboubeh, 33, was arrested in Mashhad in connection with the January 2026 nationwide protests on 2 February 2026. According to informed IHRNGO sources, Mahboubeh had helped transport injured protesters on her motorbike. At the time of her arrest, she was scheduled to sit the engineering council exam and was managing several construction projects.
An informed source told IHRNGO: "Mahboubeh was held in detention centres and solitary confinement for an extended period. She was arrested violently, because Mahboubeh practised martial arts, they subjected her to severe mistreatment and beat her while taking her into custody. The interrogator also subjected her to severe psychological harassment, and even in prison, she received threatening messages conveyed through other prisoners in the ward who shared the same interrogator. She even received inappropriate messages, to the point that a complaint was filed with the prison authorities. This was because there were several prisoners whom this interrogator would come to question inside the ward superintendent's office. Mahboubeh also suffered immense financial losses, and they devastated her in prison through relentless harassment."
In August, Mahboubeh staged a 20-day hunger strike in protest against the transfer of political prisoners to Wards 1 and 2, which house those convicted of ordinary, non-political crimes. Her strike successfully resulted in the prisoners being moved to Ward 6, the designated ward for political detainees.
On 26 September, she was informed of her death sentence behind bars. In an audio message recorded inside Mashhad Central Prison and received by IHRNGO, Mahboubeh said:
"Hello. Today, my death sentence was communicated to my lawyer as a non-final ruling. This sentence that has been handed down to me today shows that many others are truly in danger of execution. I am not worried about myself; I am more worried for the others whose sentences have been upheld. I ask everyone, the public, the United Nations, human rights organisations for me, for all the others whose sentences have been upheld and who have spent months sleeping in fear and stress at night. I ask them to do something. At the very least, someone must come to their aid. I would be grateful now to everyone if someone could truly do something for us. Conditions are extremely bad for the prisoners in prison, given the pressures they exert on us in addition to the pressures inside the prison, the psychological pressure they inflict on us is one thing, and these sentences that they sleep with at night is another. Now, I beg everyone to do whatever is in their power [to save their lives.]"
Automated prison phone announcement: "This call is from Mashhad Prison and the caller is a prisoner."
Shortly after recording the message, Mahboubeh was moved to solitary confinement. Given that her death sentence had not been confirmed by the Supreme Court, the official grounds for this transfer remain unknown.