Taraneh and Romina Rahimi, 20-year-old twins from Isfahan (Iran's main central city), have been sentenced to death and 25 years in prison respectively after participating in Iran's mass anti-government protests in January. The sisters were abducted in the night by masked agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and held incommunicado for months; their mother, when finally permitted a prison visit, found them beaten, with broken bones and hair torn from their scalps, while Taraneh told the court her confession had been extracted through torture. The case has drawn international attention as Iran has executed more than 500 people this year, including at least 29 in connection with the January unrest, with the UK and 30 other countries last month condemning the executions as an attempt to suppress dissent.