New Delhi: On the eve of his execution, 25-year-old Iranian protester Alireza Sepahi got married to his 22-year-old fiancée, Mahshad Kashani. The ceremony was held over the telephone, arranged from separate prisons in Isfahan, Iran. Hours later, on the morning of 5 October, Sepahi was hanged.
The couple had been arrested in alleged connection with the January 2026 anti-government protests in Iran. Authorities linked them to the demonstrations held on 8 January in Isfahan’s Alikhani Square, where four police officers were killed, according to reports. Sepahi was sentenced to death, and Kashani is serving a five-year prison term.
A wedding over a call
Sepahi had already faced the gallows once.
In July, he was scheduled for a public hanging but suffered a heart attack and was transferred to a hospital, delaying the sentence. After months in jail that included periods of solitary confinement, the Isfahan Revolutionary Court rejected his appeal. Relatives were summoned for a final meeting.
Kashani pushed for the marriage, aware of his upcoming fate. Prison officials denied the couple any in-person meeting. The ceremony was completely over the phone.
Tehran-based human rights lawyer Amirsalar Davoudi helped arrange and officiate an audio call connecting the pair, held in different Isfahan facilities, with fathers of both prisoners present on the call.
“This was not my idea — I only carried it out,” Davoudi told The Times. “It was Mahshad’s idea. Even now, I wonder how one young woman can possess such courage. She taught us an extraordinary lesson.”
The lawyer recited the religious vows and asked the parents for permission to perform the marriage with a symbolic dowry of one copy of the Holy Quran, a piece of rock candy (or saffron rock candy in some accounts), and a red rose.
Hopes of stopping the execution
Davoudi hoped that the wedding could stop the execution by drawing international attention to the case.
“I hope love will defeat that cursed rope,” he said. “I will lose my faith in God if
they execute this young man tonight.”
Davoudi added that the nine-minute ceremony brought even some of the police officers to tears.
According to reports, Sepahi was hanged at Isfahan’s central prison, alongside 21-year-old Alireza Raissi. His body was not returned to the family in Isfahan for burial either. It was transferred roughly 200 kilometers away to Kashan.
The newly wed widow, Kashani, remains imprisoned.
“We should not use the word execution,” Davoudi said. “Execution suggests that a lawful process has taken place. These are state killings based on confessions extracted under torture.”
Edited by Maryam Hassan