An iron scaffold erected Monday in the central Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears that authorities are preparing to publicly execute more protesters arrested during January's nationwide unrest, sources told Iran International.
The scaffold was installed in Alikhani Square, where protests erupted on January 8.
Twelve young men convicted in what became known as the Alikhani Square case were sentenced to death. Two of them—Golmohammad Mohammadi and Erfan Esfandiari—were executed on July 19.
Witness accounts circulating on social media described Alikhani Square as being under heavy security on Monday night.
A source close to the family of Amirhossein Safari, another defendant in the case, told Iran International that relatives had been summoned to Isfahan Central Prison for what they believed could be a final visit.
The concerns were echoed by prominent Iranian activist Mehdi Mahmoudian, who wrote on X that several families of the ten remaining death-row prisoners in the Alikhani Square case had also been instructed to report to the prison for final visits.
Mahmoudian identified cousins Alireza Sepahi and Abolfazl Sepahi among those facing what he described as an imminent risk of execution. He also noted that two other defendants in the case had already been executed.
The visible deployment of security forces around the scaffold has further fuelled fears that additional executions could be carried out publicly.
Iranian authorities accuse the defendants of involvement in the killing of four security personnel, as well as arson and vandalism during the January protests. Officials say four members of the Basij militia and Special Unit forces were killed during clashes in the area.
UN condemns death sentences
Earlier on Monday, UN experts led by Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, urged the authorities to halt the executions of the ten remaining defendants.
"Sentencing 12 people to death in one hearing, in a closed courtroom and without clarity as to each defendant's individual responsibility violates established fair trial standards," the experts said.
They said the defendants, aged from their late teens to their early twenties, were reportedly subjected to arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and, in some cases, ill-treatment.
According to the experts, the convictions relied heavily on confessions broadcast on state television, while Revolutionary Court hearings were held behind closed doors and the judgments were never made public.
Among those still facing execution is Shervin Bagherian Jebeli, who turned 18 only days before his arrest.
Iran’s state television broadcast footage of Jebeli confessing to violence against security officers within a week of his detention and before any trial, the experts said.
They added that Jebeli appeared unaware of the meaning of the capital charge against him—moharebeh, or "enmity against God"—raising concerns that he had not had access to legal counsel of his own choosing.
"Confessions obtained under coercion must never be admitted as evidence, and broadcasting them before trial violates the presumption of innocence," the experts said.
Mahmoudian said the Alikhani Square case, like many other political and security prosecutions in Iran, had been marked by serious legal irregularities, denial of fair trial guarantees and widespread humanitarian concerns.
With a scaffold now standing in Alikhani Square and families reporting final prison visits, relatives fear the remaining death sentences could soon be carried out despite mounting international pressure.
The panel, held at Iran International's Washington headquarters and moderated by Fardad Farahzad, brought together Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council, and Iranian-American analyst Fereshteh Pezeshk.
The discussion came amid renewed US strikes, with attacks tearing through bridges and infrastructure across Iran's south.
Is Washington heading for a ground operation?
The question hanging over the room was whether the air campaign is a prelude to something larger. Rubin framed the choice in stark terms.
"When you have a hornet's nest, you have two good options. One is to leave it alone. The other one is to get rid of it," he said. "The last thing you want to do is sit underneath it lightly tapping it with a stick, and we're getting to the point where that stick tapping is over."
The open question, he added, is "are we heading to boots on the ground? And if we're heading to boots on the ground, are we simply talking about the islands in the Persian Gulf, or are we talking about some of the ports?"
Pezeshk talked about the risks. A move onto Iranian soil, she argued, would be "disastrous," and not only in military terms. "A very good population of Iranians, unlike the rest of the Middle East, are pro-American," she said, describing "a chasm between the people and the Islamic Republic" after the killing on Iran's streets.
An occupation, she warned, could close that chasm rather than widen it. "The solution is in Tehran, not on the coasts. You've got to resolve that problem."
Berman placed the same question inside American politics, noting that gasoline prices and looming midterm elections are shaping every decision the administration makes.
The task now, he said, is to establish what military planners call escalation dominance, "to show the Iranian regime that they have more firepower and they have politically more will to stay and to fight."
Regime change or transformation?
The most contested idea of the evening came from Berman, who argued that a quieter transformation has already taken place inside the Islamic Republic.
The current rulers, he said, "have a different DNA. They behave differently, they negotiate differently," a shift he traced in part to a war that opened at the very top of the escalation ladder with the killing of the supreme leader.
However, he pointed out that the change has not produced true regime change. “The Trump administration hasn’t dug deep enough... “You haven’t had regime change as most of us have historically thought about it – a transition from the Islamic Republic to a fundamentally different governing system.”
Rubin pushed the logic toward the machinery of power, describing an effort to peel away the leadership layer by layer. With the Revolutionary Guards numbering well over 100,000, he argued, "somewhere along those ranks there is someone who wants to enrich himself" and would deal with Washington.
But he cautioned that the administration may not know who actually runs the country, comparing its approach to "negotiating with the doorman in a skyscraper rather than negotiating with the owner."
Both men returned to a warning that any transition badly managed could produce something worse.
Pezeshk offered the strongest caution against treating decapitation strikes as a complete regime-change strategy. “You have to resolve the political issue in Tehran, not the manifestation.”
She pressed the point harder: removing the leadership without a plan for the day after risks chaos. "How do you ensure it's not going to be a Taliban-like power that comes in? Are you working with the opposition? Are you inclusive enough?" She saw little sign of that groundwork.
"The guy sitting in Tehran is going to be there forever until they die. The US president, two and a half years from now, is gone."
The next uprising, and a fumbled chance
If there was a shared conviction, it was that Iran's streets, not its negotiators, will decide the outcome, and that Washington keeps missing its moments there.
Berman described unrest in Iran as a cyclical force, erupting roughly every two and a half years and accelerating. The lesson of the past six months, he said, is that the US was caught flat-footed when it mattered.
When the internet went dark in January, he recounted, the administration assumed it could "just pierce that veil" with Starlink units and VPNs. Instead it found the jamming, aided by Russia and China, far more robust than expected, and its own tools not prepositioned.
"One of the most important lessons that this last half year has brought is we should be thinking now about the next round of protests, because the next protest is going to start."
Pezeshk argued it already had. She credited the January protests, set off in part by an opposition call to the streets, as "one of the biggest protests ever in Iranian history," met with a killing she put at around 40,000. Her frustration was that such a force draws so little attention in Washington.
The Kurds, the islands, and a mafia state
Asked whether the US might arm Kurdish or other groups to open a ground front, the panel was wary. Rubin noted Washington's long reluctance to back separatist movements in the region, and Pezeshk attributed the on-again, off-again talk to "the chaos of the Trump administration."
Berman said officials he had spoken to were "very nervous about the steadfastness and the resolve of these elements."
Rubin, speaking "as an analyst rather than advocate," sketched where a limited campaign might fall: not the ports, but strategic islands, from Abu Musa and the Tunbs to Kish and Qeshm, "the gateway to Bandar Abbas."
He warned that seizing Iranian territory could backfire by rallying a fiercely nationalist public. The Islamic Republic, he argued, would not be moved by the loss of land the way a normal state would.
"They act like a mafia. They don't care if part of the country is gone as long as they're still in power."
Pezeshk’s argument was that territorial occupation – whether by US forces, Kurdish groups or another regional actor – could unite Iranians around national sovereignty.
Can an ideological system make a lasting deal?
Rubin argued that the Islamic Republic’s political identity limits its ability to reach the kind of pragmatic agreement sought by the Trump administration. Rubin argued that the Islamic Republic’s political identity limits its ability to reach the kind of pragmatic agreement sought by the Trump administration.
Pezeshk was skeptical any lasting deal is possible with a system she sees as ideological to its core.
Persian Gulf states, she said, want development, not confrontation, "they do not want to go back to the 18th century," while the Islamic Republic "has a tolerance for absorbing a lot of pain just because they don't care about their people."
Whether the war ends at the table or on the coast, the panel's consensus held that its true resolution lies elsewhere.
As Rubin put it, the nuclear file, the missiles and the proxies are all "the manifestation of the root cause, which is the Islamic Republic."
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot had already confirmed that two members of the French embassy were detained for several hours on Sunday, calling the episode "serious and unacceptable" and warning it "cannot go without consequences."
"One of them was physically abused," Barrot said, describing the detention as an "extremely serious act of intimidation" and a "flagrant violation of diplomatic immunity."
According to a source familiar with the matter who spoke to Iran International, Iranian security forces detained the two diplomats, took them to an undisclosed location and interrogated them. Both were subjected to psychological pressure during their detention and questioning, and that at least one was physically assaulted, the source said.
The episode has heightened concern among staff at the French embassy in Tehran, with several employees asking to return to France before completing their assignments, although their postings have not officially ended, according to the source.
French authorities are now considering whether to end some diplomatic assignments early and reduce the embassy's presence in Tehran, the source added.
Paris seeks answers
Iran International has sent a formal request to the French Foreign Ministry seeking comment on the condition of the two diplomats, Paris' planned response and the possible impact on embassy operations in Tehran.
The ministry had not responded by the time of publication.
Barrot said he had raised the matter directly with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, telling him the detention represented a serious breach of diplomatic immunity protected under international law.
According to Barrot, the two diplomats were responsible for French programs supporting Iranian civil society, particularly artists and scientists. Both were released and are expected to return to France.
Relations deteriorate
The detention comes as relations between Paris and Tehran continue to worsen over Iran's nuclear program, regional policies and the imprisonment of French nationals.
France has said it opposes lifting sanctions on Iran unless Tehran abandons its nuclear program and changes what Paris describes as destabilizing regional policies. Paris has also called for a broader European role in negotiations over Iran.
The dispute follows years of friction over French nationals held in Iran. Paris has repeatedly called for the release of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, who have been detained since 2022, describing their imprisonment as arbitrary and accusing Iran of using foreign detainees to seek diplomatic concessions.
Earlier this year, France brought a case against Iran before the International Court of Justice over alleged violations of consular rights.
The detention of accredited embassy staff broadens the dispute from French citizens held in Iran to diplomats protected under international law, adding another point of strain in relations between Paris and Tehran.
Iranian authorities had not publicly commented on the case by the time of publication.
