Majid Nikandish, executed over Mashhad's Dey uprising: his will published

In the early hours of Friday 16 October 2026, Prince Reza Pahlavi's media office published an image of the will of Majid Nikandish, a 25-year-old from Quchan whom the Islamic Republic executed on 30 September on a charge of "moharebeh" in the case of the Dey uprising in Mashhad. According to the Prince's office, the note was written hours before the sentence was carried out.

According to the account of Prince Reza Pahlavi's media office, Majid Nikandish wrote in his will of his love for his family and asked them to rejoice at his funeral. He wrote that only one question was left in his mind: "Why?" The Prince's office called him "a true soldier of Iran" and said he was arrested, and later executed, after refusing to fire on the people who had come out onto the streets of Mashhad on the evenings of 8 and 9 January.

The question raised by Prince Reza Pahlavi's office

Prince Reza Pahlavi's media office repeated the same question, addressed to the public conscience: why is the Islamic Republic executing Iran's children on baseless charges? The office wrote that Iran's immortal martyrs will not be forgotten and that "the day of justice will come". The message follows earlier positions taken by the Prince's office on the wave of political executions, including its reaction to the execution of Ali-Sina Mostafavi, which it called a "state murder".

The case of Majid Nikandish and Ali Hemmati

Majid Nikandish and Ali Hemmati were arrested on 8 January 2026 in the Tabarsi district of Mashhad. Branch 1 of the Mashhad Revolutionary Court, headed by Gholamreza Akbari, sentenced Nikandish to death on a charge of "moharebeh", and the Supreme Court upheld the sentence. The Islamic Republic's judiciary announced that both men were executed in Mashhad in the early hours of Wednesday 30 September 2026.

Mizan news agency, the judiciary's organ, claimed that the two were among the "ringleaders" of that night's clashes and that their activity led to the deaths of four security personnel; no independent source has confirmed this claim. The Hrana news agency had reported that a forced confession was extracted from Nikandish in detention. The Prince's office's account of his refusal to obey an order to fire also gives a picture entirely different from the judiciary's version.

According to Iran Human Rights, by 22 August at least 29 detainees of the Dey uprising had been executed and at least 100 more were at risk of execution. Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, also spoke in his new report of an unprecedented crackdown in Iran and called for an immediate halt to executions.

Hours before his execution, Majid Nikandish asked his family to rejoice at his funeral and asked only: why?