As demonstrations over economic grievances morphed into a mass movement challenging Iran’s theocratic system in January 2026, photos of a smiling man with a noose around his neck surfaced in posts falsely claiming it showed one of the protesters about to be hanged by authorities in the Islamic republic. The photos in fact show a man convicted of assassinating an Iranian judge before his execution in August 2007.
“The Iranian government have also carried out executions of protesters by hanging,” reads part of the traditional Chinese caption of a collage shared on Threads on January 14, 2026.
The collage shows three photos of a man grinning and waving despite his hands being tied behind his back and having a blue noose around his neck.
The caption goes onto compare the man’s demeanour to people executed by the Taiwanese government during the “White Terror” political purges between 1949 and 1992Â (archived link). Some of those executed were pictured smiling in the moments before they were killed (archived link).
Screenshot of the false post captured on January 21, 2026, with a red X added by AFP
Photos of the man were also shared in similar Threads and X posts, as well as on the Taiwanese forum PTT.
The pictures circulated as Iran was gripped by nationwide protests initially triggered by economic grievances that turned into a mass movement demanding the removal of the clerical system that has ruled the Islamic republic since the 1979 revolution (archived link).
Monitors say the protests have subsided after a crackdown that killed thousands under an internet blackout (archived link).
Iranian authorities said on January 21 that 3,117 people were killed during the protests, but the director of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO said “all available evidence emerging from Iran indicates that the real number of people killed during the protests is far higher”.
The photos circulating online, however, predate the protest movement by 17 years.
AFP has previously debunked a false claim the photos show a man sentenced to death in Syria for preaching the gospel, and a similar false claim that linked his execution to anti-government protests in Iran in September 2022.
A reverse image search on Google led to a similar photo on the Alamy photo agency website which identified the man as Majid Kavousifar, a convicted murderer who was publicly hanged in Iran’s capital Tehran on August 2, 2007 (archived link).
AFP reported that Majid Kavousifar and his nephew Hossein Kavousifar were executed after being convicted of murdering Iranian judge Hassan Moghaddas, who worked at the “guidance” court which handles sensitive cases of moral corruption, in the first known public executions in the capital in five years (archived link).
They were hanged from a crane in the exact location of the judge’s murder in August 2005, in the middle of a busy business district.
Majid Kavousifar reportedly showed no remorse, waving one hand from his handcuffs, grinning at onlookers and even chatting to his executioner.
The circulating photos correspond to an AFP photo taken at the time.
Iranian Majid Kavousifar bids farewell to his relatives before being hanged in public in central Tehran August 2, 2007
BEHROUZ MEHRIAFP
(BEHROUZ MEHRI / AFP)
AFP has debunked other false claims related to the Iran protests.