Did Trump stop executions of 8 women in Iran? What we know

In April 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that Iran planned to execute eight women by hanging.

One social media user who shared the claim on X also shared a collage of eight images claiming to show the women the Iranian regime had allegedly sentenced to death.

The claim and collage of images also circulated on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived) and Threads (archived). Snopes readers wrote to us and searched our website to verify whether it was accurate.

The claim about the planned executions reached as far as the White House. U.S. President Donald Trump shared the collage of the eight women's images on Truth Social on April 21 alongside a plea to Iranian leaders to "do them no harm." Neither the original post nor Trump's post sharing it listed the names of the women.

(Donald J. Trump, accessed via Truth Social)

Trump appeared to suggest in a Truth Social post the next day that his involvement had helped free the women or reduce their sentences. Meanwhile, Iranian state media appeared to dismiss (archived) the entire story as "fake news."

Snopes sought to confirm the identities of the women in the post Trump shared with Iranian authorities. We also tried to confirm any charges or sentences they received. We await replies to our queries.

Information about arrests, charges and sentences in Iran is difficult to verify because the country's justice system is neither transparent nor public. According to Amnesty International, the system routinely denies defendants access to a lawyer and bases sentences on coerced confessions.

Questions also remained over the authenticity of the images in the post Trump shared, including whether they all depicted real women facing the death penalty in Iran. It was also unclear whether they were generated or enhanced using artificial intelligence or traditional digital editing tools, beyond cropping and the addition of a backlit effect.

Given the many unknowns, we've left this claim unrated until more information emerges.

What we know about the 8 women's identities, images

According to fellow fact-checking website Lead Stories and the nonprofit organization Iran Human Rights, the women in the X post shared by Trump are real people detained by Iranian authorities.

In an email to Snopes, IHR identified the eight women whom Trump referred to in his post as Bita Hemmati, Ghazal Ghalandari (archived), Golnar Naraghi, Venus Hosseinnejad, Mahboubeh Shabani, Panah Movahedi (archived), Ensieh Nejati (archived) and Diana Taherabadi (archived).

However, we could not definitively confirm whether the photos that Trump shared actually depict the women identified by IHR. While some of the images appeared in various reports about them, we were unable to verify the source of each image or confirm that all of the listed names matched their associated photos. 

(Eyal Yakoby, accessed via X, illustrated by Snopes)

IHR founder Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam told Snopes via email that his organization had not independently verified the authenticity of the images, but that the images of Hemmati, Hosseinnejad, Shabani and Nejati "appear to be based on their original photos." Snopes located these photos in earlier reports. However, we could not definitively confirm if they actually showed the women named because we could not access primary sources such as court records or mug shots or reports from reputable media outlets.

At minimum, our searches revealed that the collage Trump shared likely included a photo that doesn't show Naraghi. The Women's Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran shared a different photo of the woman, who it said was a doctor, that does not resemble the image circulating online. We could not find the exact images of Movahedi and Taherabadi included in posts, though both resembled other pictures of the women that circulated online. 

What we know about arrests and sentences

Our searches returned reports from human rights organizations and media outlets that indicated Iranian security forces had arrested the eight named women in early 2026. Taherabadi and Ghalandari were reportedly minors under 18 years old. 

Snopes could not independently confirm any of the women's exact charges or sentences due to the lack of transparency in the Iranian judicial system.

According to IHR, only Hemmati faced a death sentence. This corresponded with a report from the Human Rights Activists News Agency. We could not independently confirm this report or IHR's information with the Iranian judiciary.

Amiry-Moghaddam also told Snopes via email that authorities had reportedly released Naraghi and Hosseinnejad on bail. Snopes could not independently verify this fact.

Iranian security forces had reportedly told 16-year-old Taherabadi that she could also face the death sentence, but her charges were unclear. According to a report by the anti-regime group the Women's Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Shabani's charges could also result in the death penalty.

According to Trump, following his supposed appeal to Iran, four of the women would be released "immediately" and four would receive one-month prison sentences. It was not clear from Trump's post which of the four women would be released and which would serve more time in prison. We contacted the White House to ask how Trump identified the women in the post he shared, and how it confirmed they would be released or receive lesser sentences.

We found no evidence that Iran would drop Hemmati's already-imposed death sentence.

Iran's judiciary Mizan News Agency called Trump's post announcing the alleged development in the cases of the eight women a fabrication. It did not confirm whether the judiciary charged the women or any reported sentences they received.