In the context of an escalating, horrific wave of executions¹ since the election of the “moderate” president (Masoud Pezeshkian), Iran’s theocratic regime hanged nine prisoners over this past weekend (July 20-21), eight in just 48 hours. On the morning of July 25, the innocent Kurdish prisoner of conscience Kamran Sheikheh was executed in Iran after 14 years in prison. He was arrested along with six other defendants (all recently executed) at the end of 2009 and sentenced to death in 2016 on such baseless charges that the Supreme Court originally overturned the convictions.²  

The prisoners-led “No to Executions Tuesday” hunger strike against capital punishment has continued for half a year, expanding to 16 prisons across Iran just in the week as of July 23. They are issuing calls for all prisoners (political and non-political) to unite and elevate the anti-execution demand to a society wide political battle. The prisoners’ ongoing weekly hunger strike—in the face of death and torture—is a clarion call for solidarity to end repression and state murder in Iran and all over the world.

Salute to the Defiant Sisters in Evin’s Dungeon

On July 24, as many as 60³ courageous women political prisoners held an overnight sit-in at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison’s yard. Their specific focus was to protest the recent death sentence issued to Kurdish journalist and activist Pakhshan Azizi on sham charges of “armed rebellion.” Pakhshan is currently being held in Evin prison where she is deprived of phone calls and visitation rights. She reported multiple instances of torture during her initial five-month solitary confinement in a detention center: “I was hanged several times by interrogators.” 

According to a joint Instagram post by Evin prisoners Narges Mohammadi (2023 Nobel Laureate), Iranian-German Nahid Taghavi and Iranian writer Golrokh Iraee, the women pledged to “spend the night in the prison yard.”

Observers reported that the protesters chanted in unison:

* Death to the execution government

* From Kurdistan to Gilan, [stop] oppression against women

* Women’s ward of Evin, united and determined, standing until the death sentence is abolished

* Resistance is life, Pakhshan is a free woman

This is the second death sentence issued for a woman political prisoner in the past few weeks. On July 4, Sharifeh Mohammadi, another activist of the Gilan minority, was sentenced to death, also on sham charges of “armed rebellion.” There have been widespread protests against her outrageous sentence including “collective actions and statements to stand with Sharifeh.”⁴  In both cases, the women are charged only on the basis of alleged affiliation with parties in Iranian Kurdistan, an oppressed ethnic minority region.

Prisoners in Ghezel Hesar Support Evin Women: “Resistance Will Not Stop”

Responding to the protest by women prisoners of Evin Prison, the political prisoners in Ghezel Hezar, where the hunger strikes first began, wrote (reposted by Burn The Cage):

Immediately after the sham elections and their widespread boycott, the machinery of repression and execution has predictably been set in motion again. In just four days, more than 18 prisoners were executed in various prisons; this Tuesday alone, seven prisoners were executed, including three female prisoners, highlighting the misogynistic nature of the regime. Through the cries of protest of the courageous women in Evin prison, we learned that political prisoner Pakhshan Azizi was sentenced to death on the regime-fabricated charge of 'rebellion.' At the same time Mr. Kamran Sheikheh, our former companion, has also been executed this morning in Urmia Prison. We also learned that more than ten other people were transferred to solitary confinement to execute their [death] sentences. We, the prisoners of Gezel Hesar Prison, also join the protests of political prisoners in the women's wing of Evin Prison and condemn the violation of the Iranian people's right to life by the execution machinery. We call on all international human rights organizations to pay attention to the new wave of executions and stress that resistance and protest against oppression and execution, be it "normal or abnormal", "political or apolitical", will not stop. 

Political Prisoners Unit 4 of Ghezel Hesar Prison

Recently, the women’s organization Osyan⁵ posted:

Why has the Islamic Republic attacked active women? The Islamic Republic is furious over the blow suffered by Jina's uprising. An uprising focused on the issues of women and national oppression throughout Iran that unleased the anger of people over these two long-standing atrocities and shook the government as a whole… The government with prison and death sentences of these women seeks several goals:

First, the danger of impending uprisings and stronger blows to the foundations of their state power;

Second, it always takes hostages to inject fear into society by threatening their lives and safety;

And third, to deprive society of its real organizers and intellectual representatives in the war against the powers-that-be, and thereby strengthen its pawns as representatives of the people.

The message of the Islamic Republic is clear: Full hostility toward women fighters! Our message to the government is also clear: we will respond to your attack with a strong counter-attack. Uprising against execution should become the center of the fight for all social movements from the Women and Queer Movement to the Workers, Teachers, Retirees and Artists Movement. No both to execution and to the republic of executions!

The brave and determined protests of Iran’s prisoners against the death sentences of Pakhshan Azizi and Sharifeh Mohammadi, and NO to executions of prisoners must be supported as precious, inspiring role model of resistance for all who hate injustice and oppression from Iran to Gaza to the U.S. As Dr. Cornel West, a signer of IEC’s Emergency Appeal, said about the (rescinded for now) death sentence of Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi “we need moral consistency.” And we say to our sisters and brothers in Iran’s hellholes: “keep your head up.” We stand with you and we will not forget you in our common struggle for justice and a better world: We demand of the Islamic Republic of Iran: FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS NOW! We say to the U.S. government: NO THREATS OR WAR MOVES AGAINST IRAN, LIFT U.S. SANCTIONS!