Iran Twins Sentenced Over Protests: Family Appeals to UN
The family of 21-year-old twins Taraneh and Romina Rahimi has appealed to the United Nations after Iran sentenced one sister to death and the other to 25 years in prison.
British human rights lawyers filed a formal "submission of information" to the UN for the family, made public on 24 September 2026. The filing brings evidence to UN experts and asks for international intervention in a case that moved within months from protest detention to a death sentence. The Guardian
The twins were detained about eight months earlier by men from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's powerful military force, after joining nationwide protests against the government. Family accounts say masked men took them from their beds at night with bags over their heads and gave no explanation. They were 19 and still in high school. Their mother, Marzieh Nourmohammadi, spent four months searching hospitals and state institutions before she learned where they were held.
They were tried for taking part in protests in Isfahan on 8 and 9 January on charges including moharebeh, which means waging war against God under Iranian law and can carry the death penalty. At the end of August 2026, Taraneh was sentenced to death along with nine others. Romina received a 25-year sentence. Both are held in Dowlatabad prison in Isfahan.
The family says both sisters were tortured and forced to confess. It says Taraneh was threatened with being forced to watch the rape of her sister if she did not sign a confession, was told she could eat only other prisoners' leftovers as punishment, and needs surgery for injuries from interrogation. Neither sister has been seen by family since sentencing. Nourmohammadi visited them at Dowlatabad in May 2026 and said she found them with bruised faces and patchy scalps from being dragged by their hair.
Their cousin, Masoud Nourmohammadi, a 43-year-old IT engineer living in Utah, said he turned to the UN out of desperation. He arrived in the United States from Iran 22 years before September 2026. He has said he received death threats by text and social media from people claiming to know his home address after he spoke publicly about the case.
The case is part of a larger state response to the January protests, when millions took to the streets in Iranian cities. Taraneh and Romina are among 16 defendants jailed in Isfahan over those protests, according to earlier reporting. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Iran had executed more than 500 people in 2026 as of early September. At least 29 were linked to the January protests, and at least 16 women were among those executed this year. Hundreds more protesters received death sentences or face charges that could carry the death penalty, including more than 70 in Isfahan. In August 2026, the United Kingdom and 30 other countries signed a joint statement condemning the executions of January protesters as an attempt to silence dissent.
Iran's war with the US and Israel began in February 2026. In the week before 24 September, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the UN General Assembly in New York that Iran was "ready for dialogue and diplomacy."
The broader context here is a tension diplomats have seen before. A government signals openness in New York while its courts issue capital sentences at home. That gap leaves other governments to decide whether cases like the Rahimis are kept separate from nuclear and regional files, or treated as inseparable from them.
Looking at what this means for the UN appeal, the family's immediate aims are scrutiny, access and delay. International pressure has in the past slowed executions or helped secure medical care and family visits, though it rarely decides verdicts. The test now is whether this submission, amplified by diaspora advocacy and the joint condemnation in August, can keep Taraneh's sentence from proceeding and improve conditions for both sisters. The record on protest-related death sentences in 2026 suggests time is short.
