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.