Shirin Ebadi: The 'No to Execution Tuesdays' Campaign is the Result of Resistance Against Pressure and Repression

Shirin Ebadi, a lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, described the 'No to Execution Tuesdays' campaign as a result of not succumbing to pressure and repression, as well as an emphasis on unity and collective action. In a report about the campaign based on conversations with the families of political prisoners in Qezel Hessar prison and published reports, she stated that the choice of Tuesdays for the public hunger strike by prisoners symbolizes the last day of life for those on death row and signifies resistance against this inhumane punishment. The report cited a family member of the political prisoners who initiated the 'No to Execution Tuesdays' campaign, emphasizing that during the first week of Bahman 1402 (January 2024), when Farhad Salimi and Mohammad Qabadelou were 'suddenly' executed along with several prisoners related to drug offenses, political prisoners in Qezel Hessar raised the question of 'what should be done to combat these executions,' which are a 'daily issue.' They were thinking about a more comprehensive and fundamental action to support not only political prisoners but also drug offenders and other prisoners under death sentences. According to Shirin Ebadi, the 'No to Execution Tuesdays' campaign has four features: increased attention to the execution of prisoners for non-political crimes, emphasis on collective action for success, the necessity of continuity and persistence in collective action, and greater attention to anonymous political and ideological prisoners under death sentences. Ebadi emphasized that this campaign is 'the result of not succumbing to pressure and repression, and resistance along with initiative and continuity, and emphasis on unity and collective action, and it continues.' Concurrently with Masoud Pezeshkian's trip to the United Nations, members of the 'No to Execution Tuesdays' campaign urged the UN General Assembly to condemn the 'widespread slaughter and execution of prisoners' by the Islamic Republic in Iran. On Bahman 10 of last year, 10 political prisoners imprisoned in Qezel Hessar prison in Alborz province announced that from now on, they would hold a group hunger strike every Tuesday in protest against executions, titled 'Black Tuesdays.' According to a report by the Persian section of Voice of America on Bahman 10, 1402, 'Zartosht Ahmadi Raghb, Jafar Ebrahimi, Ahmadreza Haeri, Loqman Aminpour, Meysam Dehbanzadeh, Saeed Masouri, Reza Mohammadi, Reza Salmanzadeh, Hamzeh Savari, and Sepehr Imam Jom'e' were the first prisoners to announce that they would go on hunger strike every Tuesday in protest against the execution process. This human rights campaign, which later became known as 'No to Execution Tuesdays,' received support from political prisoners and some ordinary prisoners in other prisons across Iran and is currently active in at least 21 prisons.