No, this photo doesn’t show a man hanged for 'writing against the President of Iran'

(Trigger warning: This story mentions and includes links to some distressing visuals. Readers discretion is advised.)

What is the claim?

Multiple social media users have posted a photo of a man with a blue noose around his neck, which is attached to a hook of a crane hanging above his head. The viral photo, which includes a picture of a young girl, is being shared to claim (archived here and here) that the man in the photo was publicly hanged for criticizing the President of Iran on social media while his daughter watched. The claim surfaced after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in East Azerbaijan Province on May 19.

Several users condemned the alleged incident alluded to in the viral posts carrying the viral photo and went on to justify Raisi's death as 'the fate of every cruel person.'

An X user wrote, "What a horrific picture it was when the President of Iran sentenced a person to death for writing against him on social media. How his 5-year-old daughter was looking at her father while he was being hanged from a crane. And seeing his daughter sad, her father was trying to cheer her up by laughing even in the last (moments). Imagine, the father knew that he was going to die, yet he wanted to make his daughter laugh and remove the sadness from her face. Today the beast died, this is the fate of every beast (translated from Hindi).

Screenshots of social media posts claiming that a viral photo shows a man being executed in front of his daughter for writing against the President of Iran on social media. (Source: X/ Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the photo is actually from the year 2007, and the man was charged with the offense of murdering a judge.

What did we find? 

We conducted a reverse image search and discovered that the photo circulating on social media is of a person named Majid Kavousifar and is actually from August 2007. According to a BBC report, an uncle and nephew duo, Majid and Hossein Kavousifar, were publicly hanged at Iran's Tehran Square for the alleged murder of Judge Hassan Moghaddas in central Tehran in 2005. The report included a photo of a man who was wearing the same clothes as the individual seen in the viral image. 

The man in the BBC report also had a blue noose tied around his neck and appeared to share the physical traits of the man seen in the image in question— both had a lean physique and a receding hairline. This indicates that the viral image is most likely from 2007 and was taken when a man sentenced to death for the killing of a judge was hanged.

Screenshot of  the BBC news article from 2007. (Source BBC)

Reuters had also made available several photos of the execution in August 2007 on its photo platform with the title "Hanging of Judge's Killers in Tehran - 02 Aug 2007." Some of the pictures showed the same man from the viral image with a blue noose around his neck and one of such photos was captioned: "Majid Kavousifar waves to the crowd before his execution by hanging in Tehran August 2, 2007. Iran hanged Majid and Hossein Kavousifar, the killers of a judge who had jailed several reformist dissidents, before a crowd of hundreds of people on Thursday. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi (IRAN).”

Stock images website Alamy had also shared several photos of the incident and the man from the viral image. The website said that the images were taken in August, 2007. One of the images showed the man in question hanging with the blue noose around his neck. The accompanying caption read: "Majid Kavousifar, 28, a convicted murderer of Hassan Moghaddas, a hardline deputy prosecutor and head of the "guidance" court in Tehran, waves before his publicly hanged in central Tehran, Iran on August 2, 2007. (UPI Photo/Mohammad Kheirkhah)."

All of this establishes the execution of the man in the viral photo had nothing to do with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. He was executed in 2007, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was Iran's President.

The girl in the viral photo

While we could not find any clues suggesting that the girl seen in the viral photo is actually Majid Kavousifar's daughter, we were able to find the exact photograph of the girl used in the viral photos on Reuters website. This photo was also taken on the day of Kavousifar's execution. It was credited to one Raheb Homavandi, and the caption did not state if the girl was related to Kavousifar. The caption just read, "A girl attends the hanging of Majid Kavousifar and Hossein Kavousifar in Tehran August 2, 2007. Iran hanged Majid and Hossein, the killers of a judge who had jailed several reformist dissidents, before a crowd of hundreds of people on Thursday." 

Kavousifar execution in 2007

In 2005, Iranian judge Hassan Moghaddas was shot dead by a motorcycle-borne gunman as he was leaving his office, BBC had reported. He had been involved in numerous high-profile political cases. The outlet also reported in 2007 that Majid Kavousifar and nephew Hossein were convicted of Moghaddas's murder in central Tehran two years ago.

The execution of the duo took place took place in 2007 at the same place where Moghaddas was killed two years before. The BBC report stated that "When Hossein Kavousifar looked distressed as he awaited his execution, his uncle gestured to him and smiled in an attempt to reassure him."

Iran has frequently made headlines due to their capital punishments and public executions. According to a report carried out by Al-Jazeera, at least 834 people were hanged in Iran in 2023, with the majority of them taking place within prison walls and at least seven carried out publicly, which is a higher number than in 2022.

The verdict

The man in the viral photo was not executed for writing against the President of Iran on social media. The photo is from 2007 when two persons named Majid and Hossein Kavousifar were publicly executed for murdering a prominent Iranian judge. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.