Hundreds of prisoners in Iran’s notorious Qezel Hesar Prison in Karaj outside Tehran ended their seven-day hunger strike demanding abolition of the death penalty Oct. 19, after the government made concessions in face of the growing solidarity the prisoners won.
On the second day of the strike, families of the prisoners protested outside the prison. On the last day, hundreds of family members and others protested outside the Majlis — Iran’s parliament — in Tehran. Despite a large police presence they refused to disperse, chanting, “No executions!”
The hunger strike began Oct. 13 in Ward 2 — which houses prisoners found guilty of drug offenses — after 16 prisoners were transferred to solitary confinement, a sign they were about to be executed. Political prisoners were among those from other wards who soon joined the action.
As part of the agreement ending the hunger strike, authorities transferred a group of prisoners in solitary back to their ward and promised that parliament will consider a law to pull back from using the death penalty for drug offenses.
The protest comes amid a huge increase in executions in recent months, to as many as nine a day. Over 1,000 people have been hanged since March 1, more than took place in all of 2024. Even before the recent step-up, Iran was second worldwide in the number of executions.
Some of the hunger strikers sewed their lips closed. Videos showed dozens of prisoners in the hallways by their cells holding protest signs.
“Every day and every week we witness some of our cellmates being taken to the gallows, while others spend their nights tormented by the nightmare of death and gallows rope,” the Ward 2 inmates wrote, appealing for support. “This situation is no longer bearable to us.”
“The apparatus of execution and the gallows must be dismantled,” they wrote. “Our right is not to be executed, and our place is not in prison.”
The strike won solidarity from inmates at other prisons, at the weekly protests by retirees around the country, from the Writers Association of Iran and from the Free Union of Iranian Workers.
Over 900 “political and civic activists,” including prominent members of capitalist political currents that back one or another wing of the regime, signed a statement demanding an end to forced confessions, a widespread practice by prosecutors to win convictions. They said the confessions blatantly violate “the principles of a fair trial.”
Weekly hunger strikes by prisoners — known as “No to Executions Tuesdays” — that began nearly two years ago have spread to 52 prisons.
In the summer of 1988, the reactionary regime executed thousands of political prisoners in Qezel Hesar Prison, accused of being members of the Mujahedeen after summary trials lasting only minutes. Today, most of the inmates facing execution are accused of drug offenses or murder. The death penalty falls disproportionately on the oppressed nationalities of Iran, especially Baluchi, Kurds and Arabs.