Immediately after their execution on Friday, state media re-ran video posts of what were presented as the defendants’ confessions, which Amnesty International said had been extracted by torture.

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On Wednesday, a Twitter account published handwritten notes by the men appealing for public support. “Don’t let them kill us,” read one note, which went viral on social media.

Friends of the families of the men said one of them – Kazemi – had been suspended upside down by interrogators and shown a video of his brother being tortured. Kazemi was also allegedly subjected to mock executions at least 15 times.

In an audio message recorded inside Dastgerd prison, Kazemi said: “I swear to God I am innocent. I didn’t have any weapons on me. They [security forces] kept beating me and ordering me to say this weapon is mine … I told them I would say whatever they wanted, just please leave my family alone. I did whatever they wanted because of the torture.”

Kazemi’s sister said in an interview with the Shargh newspaper before the executions: “We demand to see evidence. They should present evidence that shows my brother was present at the time of the murder. The only evidence in this case is statements by others; one says ‘I heard from someone that it was Majid’, and another says that ‘Bahmani told us that Majid was there’.”

“We don’t intend to cause trouble,” she added. “We are neither against the supreme leadership [Iranian government] nor anyone else. We just don’t want our brother’s blood to be unjustly spilled.”