"Tuesdays Against Execution": As the Crisis in the Region Grows, the Number of Executions Rises

The thirty-sixth week of the "Tuesdays Against Execution" campaign announced in a statement on October 2 that more than 23 people have been executed in the first 10 days of the month. The campaign highlighted a "medieval act" where two individuals were publicly executed on October 1 in Khomein. Additionally, from September 15 to September 24, 20 people were executed in Shiraz prison, but this information was not reported by any domestic media. The prisoners involved in this campaign stated that the government is resorting to increasing executions to hide its weaknesses amid growing international crises. The statement warned that, given the country's critical situation, the likelihood of more executions in the coming weeks is high. The protesting prisoners expressed their concerns for those sentenced to death, emphasizing that they are the first subjects to compensate for the failures and incapacity of the ruling religious tyranny in our homeland. The prisoners called on all independent and free human rights activists, both domestic and international, to be the voice of death row inmates so that they are not executed in silence. In another part of the statement, the prisoners remembered the crimes of the Islamic Republic during the Bloody Friday of Zahedan, honoring the victims and recalling that at least 120 worshippers and protesters were killed by security forces during the nationwide protests of 2022, yet the Islamic Republic continues to evade accountability for this crime. Furthermore, a group of political prisoners from Arak prison announced a hunger strike starting Tuesday, joining the thirty-sixth week of this campaign. Prisoners in 22 different prisons, including Evin, Qezel Hesar, Shiraz, Mashhad, Tabriz, and Urmia, have joined this protest movement, participating in hunger strikes every Tuesday in support of the campaign. Previously, several Nobel Peace Prize winners expressed their support for the "Tuesdays Against Execution" campaign in a joint letter, calling for the cessation of the "inhumane punishment of execution" by the Islamic Republic in Iran. According to these global human rights advocates, the "Tuesdays Against Execution" campaign has managed to attract the attention of other civil activists and human rights defenders in Iran, who have since joined the movement. According to a report by the Persian section of Voice of America on January 30, 2024, "Zartosht Ahmadi Raghb, Jafar Ebrahimi, Ahmadreza Haeri, Laghman Aminpour, Meysam Dehbanzadeh, Saeed Masouri, Reza Mohammadi, Reza Salmanzadeh, Hamzeh Savari, and Sepehr Imam Jomeh" were the first prisoners to announce that they would go on hunger strike on Tuesdays in protest against the execution process. This human rights campaign, which later became known as "Tuesdays Against Execution," has received support from political prisoners and several ordinary prisoners in other prisons in Iran and is currently active in at least 22 prisons.