{"id":245915,"date":"2026-01-15T10:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T10:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/245915\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T10:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T10:49:07","slug":"iran-says-protester-erfan-soltani-has-not-been-sentenced-to-death-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/245915\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran says protester Erfan Soltani has not been sentenced to death \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> has said he has been assured the killing of protesters<\/a> in Iran<\/a> has been halted, adding that he would \u201cwatch it and see\u201d about threatened US military action<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tensions were further eased on Thursday morning when \u200bIran\u2019s judiciary was quoted by state media as saying that Erfan Soltani, a 26 \u200dyear-old Iranian man arrested on January \u200d10th during protests, has not been sentenced to \u200cdeath.<\/p>\n

Mr Soltani, the first Iranian protester sentenced to death since the current unrest began, was widely expected to be executed on Wednesday, but his family were told it had been postponed.<\/p>\n

The judiciary said Mr Soltani, \u2060held in the \u2060central penitentiary of Karaj, \u2060is being charged with \u201ccolluding \u200dagainst the country\u2019s internal security and propaganda activities against the regime\u201d but that the death \u200cpenalty does \u200cnot apply to such charges if they \u200care confirmed by \u2060a court.<\/p>\n

The US president had repeatedly talked in recent days about coming to the aid of the Iranian people over the crackdown on protests<\/a> that Iran Human Rights, a group based in Norway, said had now killed at least 3,428 people and led to the arrest of more than 10,000.<\/p>\n

But in a surprise announcement at the White House on Wednesday night, Mr Trump said he had received assurances from \u201cvery important sources on the other side\u201d that Tehran had now stopped the use of lethal force on protesters, and that executions would not go ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve said the killing has stopped and the executions won\u2019t take place \u2013 there were supposed to be a lot of executions today and that the executions won\u2019t take place \u2013 and we\u2019re going to find out,\u201d Mr Trump said.<\/p>\n

He offered no details and noted that the United States had yet to verify the claims.<\/p>\n

Asked if US military action was now off the table, he replied: \u201cWe\u2019re going to watch it and see what the process is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi told Fox News \u201cthere is no plan\u201d by Iran to execute people in retaliation for the antigovernment protests. <\/p>\n

\u201cHanging is out of the question,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The moves to de-escalate tensions follow a flurry of activity that sparked concerns military action could be imminent. Iran closed its airspace to almost all flights without explanation early on Thursday, and airlines including Lufthansa said its flights would avoid Iranian and Iraqi airspace \u201cuntil further notice\u201d.<\/p>\n

Some personnel at a key US military base in Qatar were advised to evacuate, and the US embassy in Kuwait also ordered its personnel to temporarily halt going to the multiple military bases in the small Gulf Arab country. The US embassy in Saudi Arabia also urged staff to exercise caution and avoid military installations.<\/p>\n

A senior Iranian official said Tehran had told regional countries hosting US bases, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, that it would attack those bases in the event of a US strike. <\/p>\n

In June, Iran struck al-Udeid after the US hit nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran, though the strike was telegraphed and largely symbolic.<\/p>\n

The UK temporarily closed its embassy in Tehran, while Spain, Poland and Italy urged its citizens to leave the country.<\/p>\n

However, Iran\u2019s airspace reopened hours later, and Mr Araqchi used his Fox News interview to tone down the rhetoric, urging the US to find a solution through negotiation.<\/p>\n

Asked what he would say to Mr Trump, he said: \u201cMy message is: Between war and diplomacy, diplomacy is a better way, although we don\u2019t have any positive experience from the United States. But still diplomacy is much better than war.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest comments from Mr Trump prompted a sharp 3 per cent drop in oil prices, as concerns over possible disruption to global supplies lessened. Gold and silver also dipped on the news.<\/p>\n

Crude prices had surged over recent days as the US president talked about coming to the aid of Iranian protesters.<\/p>\n

In an interview on Wednesday night, Mr Trump expressed uncertainty as to whether exiled opposition figure Reza Pahlavi would be able to muster enough support within Iran to challenge the regime.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe seems very nice, but I don\u2019t know how he\u2019d play within his own country,\u201d Mr Trump said. \u201cAnd we really aren\u2019t up to that point yet. I don\u2019t know whether or not his country would accept his leadership, and certainly if they would, that would be fine with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UN security council is slated to meet on Thursday afternoon for \u201ca briefing on the situation in Iran,\u201d according to a spokesperson for the Somali presidency.<\/p>\n

Foreign ministers from the G7 group said they were \u201cprepared to impose additional restrictive measures\u201d on Iran over its handling of the protests, and the \u201cdeliberate use of violence, the killing of protesters, arbitrary detention and intimidation tactics\u201d. \u2013 Agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has said he has been assured the killing of protesters in Iran has been halted, adding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,42,11829,115950,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-245915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-iran-protests","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}