68 Human Rights Organizations Express Support for Iranian Prisoners’ ​“No Death Penalty Tuesdays” Abolition Movement Entering Its 31^st Week

Amidst a continued post-election execution surge and increased suppression of peaceful prison protests, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) and 67 human rights organizations across four continents expressed their support for the ongoing “No Death Penalty Tuesdays” weekly hunger strike movement currently spanning 17 Iranian prisons across the country. The August 27, 2024 statement, published a day after the first public hanging of the year, “call[ed] for an immediate halt on all executions with a view to abolish the death penalty in Iran and urge[d] the international community to support the growing abolition movement in Iran.” 

“Every six hours, one person was executed in Iranian prisons in the first 20 days of August,” the statement explains. With executions increasing “every year since 2021,” and at least 395 executions as of August 26, 2024, the statement highlights Iran’s use of the death penalty as a “tool of political repression,” emphasizing its unlawful use for drug-related crimes and disproportionate use against “[m]arginalised groups of society and ethnic minorities,” such as the Kurdish and Baluch populations, which was recently criticized by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of IHRNGO, added to the statement’s release: “The resilience of prisoners fighting against the death penalty in Iran has impressed and inspired the abolitionist movement worldwide. Our message to these courageous individuals is that we have heard your voices and will stand with you until this inhumane punishment is abolished.” 

The movement, which was originally called “Black Tuesdays,” was initiated by 10 political prisoners in Karaj’s Ghezelhesar Prison on January 30, 2024 following the execution of several political prisoners in January and months of weekly group executions at the prison. “In order to be heard, every Tuesday starting this week, we will go on hunger strike. We chose Tuesday because often it is the last day our cellmates are alive before being transferred to solitary confinement [in preparation] for execution,” Ghezelhesar prisoners explained in an open letter, translated by the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). “We ask you to defend all prisoners sentenced to death, regardless of their political or non-political charges, because we have all been unfairly tried.” 

Shortly thereafter, Nobel Peace Laureate Narges Mohammadi announced that the female ward at Evin Prison, the nation’s largest facility for detained political prisoners, would join the movement. In addition to the ongoing weekly hunger strike, 60 prisoners at Evin prison staged an overnight sit-in on July 24 to object to the death sentence of fellow prisoner, Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdish civil rights activist, as reported by Iran International; 37 prisoners were subsequently denied visitation rights for their participation in the sit-in. On August 6, the female ward staged another sit-in in the yard, chanting in protest of the execution of 34-year-old Kurdish “Woman, Life, Freedom” protester Reza Rasaei occurring that same day, as well as calling for death sentences against political prisoners to be overturned and capital punishment to be abolished. Advocates report that prison guards violently dispersed the peaceful protest, resulting in injuries to several prisoners, according to IHRNGO, DW, and BBC Persian. Ms. Mohammadi was reportedly “struck several times in the chest” and “suffered a respiratory attack and severe chest pain, causing her to collapse in the prison yard,” according to a translation of BBC Persian reporting by Human Rights Watch. On August 20, UN human rights experts “expressed deep concerns about the physical and mental integrity” of Ms. Mohammadi, urging access to medical care for her and five other prisoners. “Prisoners have the right to equivalent healthcare available in the community and must be given prompt access to medical attention in urgent cases,” said the UN experts. “Such deprivations may amount to torture and inhuman treatment, which is an absolute right not liable to exceptions and derogations, and a jus cogens norm of international human rights law.” 

Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian expert on disaster medicine detained since 2016, also began a hunger strike on June 26, just 10 days after his exclusion in a Swedish-Iranian prisoner swap, whereby Sweden released convicted war criminal Hamid Nouri in exchange for two Swedish nationals. Vida Mehrannia told AFP that her husband “thought the only way anyone can hear his voice in the world is to just start a hunger strike.” She explained that, as a medical doctor, her husband understands the “potentially fatal” risk of a hunger strike, given that he suffers from “heart arrhythmias, bradycardia, hypotension, chronic gastritis, anaemia, and extreme weight loss from his previous two hunger strikes,” but “sees no other option.” Amnesty International warned on July 8 that he is “at grave risk of execution” and highlighted that his hunger strike, lasting until July 4, exacerbated existing health conditions.