Twin sisters Tareneh and Romina Rahimi, both 19, were sentenced by an Iranian revolutionary court in Isfahan after taking part in anti-government protests on 8 January this year. Tareneh was sentenced to death by hanging, while Romina received 25 years in prison, in a case that highlights the Iranian regime's use of harsh punishment to deter dissent following nationwide demonstrations. Their cousin, Masoud Nourmohammadi, told the Daily Mail the authorities deliberately target attractive, bright young people to instil fear across the country.

The twins were arrested a week after joining protesters outside the Isfahan shoe shop where Romina worked, chanting slogans against the Islamic Republic following calls to action from exiled royal figure Reza Pahlavi. Masked men identified as belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized Tareneh and then Romina from separate addresses, and the sisters say they were tortured, with Tareneh's knee and fingers broken and both losing clumps of hair; there were also threats of rape. Sentencing was handed down on 31 August, with Tareneh named as the only woman among ten people condemned to death in Isfahan for the protests, amid UK government estimates that between 12,000 and 20,000 people were killed by security forces during the unrest.