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United Nations experts and 400 prominent women have urged Iran not to execute Zahra Tabari, a 67-year-old electrical engineer and women’s rights activist.
Ms. Tabari was arrested in April and accused of working with the banned opposition group the People’s Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI), according to her family.
In October, the Rasht Revolutionary Court found her guilty of “armed rebellion” after a trial via video link that lasted less than 10 minutes. Her family said the verdict was based on extremely limited and unreliable evidence: a piece of cloth with the words “Women, Resistance, Freedom” written on it and an unpublished audio message.
Iranian authorities have yet to comment on the case.
At least 51 more people in Iran face the death penalty for national security crimes including armed rebellion, “hostility to God,” “corruption of the planet” and espionage, according to U.N. experts.
Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on human rights, violence against women and arbitrary executions in Iran, and five members of the Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls, warning in joint statement Ms Tabari’s case shows a “pattern of serious violations of international human rights law”.
Experts say she was arrested during a raid on her home without a judicial warrant, interrogated in solitary confinement for a month and forced to admit to taking up arms against the state and joining opposition groups.
Ms. Tabari was denied access to a lawyer of her choice and was represented by a court-appointed lawyer, they said, adding that the death penalty was imposed on her immediately after a brief hearing.
They said: “Serious procedural irregularities in this case, including the unlawful deprivation of her liberty, the denial of effective legal representation, the extremely short duration of the trial, the lack of sufficient time to prepare a defence, and the use of evidence that appears insufficient to support the (armed rebellion) charge, render any resulting conviction unsafe.”
They also point out that international law limits the death penalty to the most serious crimes, namely intentional homicide.
“The execution of Tabari under these circumstances would amount to an arbitrary execution,” the experts added. “Criminalizing women’s activities for gender equality and treating such speech as evidence of armed rebellion constitutes a serious form of sex discrimination.”
On Tuesday, more than 400 prominent women – including several Nobel laureates, former presidents of Switzerland and Ecuador, and former prime ministers of Finland, Peru, Poland and Ukraine – also signed a public appeal calling for Ms. Tabari’s immediate release.
“Iran is the world’s leading executioner of women per capita today. Zahra’s case exposes the horror that anyone who dares to hold up a placard declaring women’s rebellion against oppression in Iran is now sentenced to death,” the report said.
The appeal was launched by Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Iran Genocide, a UK-based organization that represents the families of thousands of political prisoners executed in Iran three decades ago.
Another Iranian woman, Kurdish human rights activist and social worker Pakhshan Azizi, also faces the death penalty on the same charges as Ms. Tabari.
UN experts have previously said Ms Aziz’s sentence appeared to be “entirely related to her legitimate work as a social worker, including her support of Iraqi and Syrian refugees”.
According to the Iranian Human Rights Organization (IHR), at least 1,426 people were executed in Iran in the first 11 months of 2025, including 41 women, a 70% increase from the same period last year.
The organization said that as of the end of November, nearly half of those executed had been convicted of drug-related offenses and 53 others had been convicted of national security offences.
