Symbolic Burning of Gallows Rope at Protest by Civil Activists Outside Evin Prison

A number of civil activists gathered on Tuesday evening in support of the "No to Execution Tuesdays" campaign outside Evin Prison, chanting against the death penalty. According to a video shared on social media on Wednesday, March 1, during the fifty-sixth week of the campaign, a group of civil activists including Narges Mohammadi, Sedigheh Vasmaghi, Aliyeh Matlabi, Kambiz Norouzadeh, Hasti Amiri, Shaghayegh Moradi, Ali Nanavayi, Majid Mosafer, and Elham Salehi protested against executions. In the footage, the protesting women are not wearing mandatory hijab and, while chanting slogans such as "We stand until the end until the death penalty is abolished," a gallows rope is symbolically set on fire by Ms. Mohammadi. The protesters also called for the dismantling of gallows in Iran by mentioning the names of Vrisheh Moradi, Sharifeh Mohammadi, and Pakhshan Azizi, Kurdish women prisoners facing death sentences. Narges Mohammadi, a human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, noted that prisoners in dozens of jails across Iran are on hunger strike on this day to garner global support against the death penalty. The "No to Execution Tuesdays" campaign, originally known as "Black Tuesdays," was initiated last year by several political prisoners in Qezel Hesar Prison in Alborz Province and has continued with the support of prisoners in dozens of other prisons in Iran. In recent weeks, numerous protests against executions and in support of this human rights campaign have been held in various cities around the world. Members of the "No to Execution Tuesdays" campaign in 36 prisons across the country announced in a statement on February 30 that at least 62 people, including two women, were executed by the judicial authorities of the Islamic Republic in Iran in just the month of February.