Hunger strikes, family protests, and calls for justice echo across the country amid a surge in executions
On Tuesday, October 14, 2025, the 90th week of the nationwide Tuesdays Against Executions campaign was marked across 52 prisons throughout Iran, as citizens and prisoners alike raised their voices against the regime’s relentless use of the death penalty.
This week, protests were particularly strong inside Qezel Hesar Prison, where inmates launched a hunger strike on Monday after the transfer of 11 death-row prisoners to solitary confinement — a move widely viewed as a prelude to their imminent execution.
According to reports from inside the prison, around 1,500 inmates in halls 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Ward 2 have joined the strike, refusing all meals in protest. Prison authorities reportedly responded with threats and intimidation, even locking the small kitchen area (“cheraqkhaneh”) used by prisoners to prepare their own food.
Despite these repressive measures, the slogan “No to Executions” continues to echo through the corridors of Qezel Hesar — a powerful act of defiance inside one of Iran’s largest and most notorious prisons.
Statement from the Campaign Participants
In a statement released by participants in the Tuesdays Against Executions campaign, prisoners condemned the regime’s ongoing human rights abuses and the worsening conditions across Iran’s prisons:
“As the growing pressure and inhumane conditions in Iran’s prisons persist, we have witnessed the transfer of several women political and religious prisoners from Qarchak Prison to Evin Prison. These women, who protested after the tragic killing of their fellow inmate Somayeh Rashidi and the appalling conditions in Qarchak, are now being held in Evin under extremely harsh circumstances — without access to basic necessities or heating facilities.
These degrading conditions, which are not limited to Evin, constitute yet another form of torture and a flagrant violation of human rights.
Although these prisoners have escaped the hell of Qarchak, hundreds of women remain imprisoned there, including several women on death row. Qarchak, like other hellish prisons across Iran, must be shut down, and its officials must be held accountable for their crimes and human-rights abuses.
In these circumstances, coinciding with the World Day Against the Death Penalty, prisoners taking part in the Tuesdays Against Executions campaign in Qezel Hesar Prison chanted slogans denouncing executions, expressing their outrage and disgust toward these cruel and inhuman sentences.”
Families Join Nationwide Protests
At the same time, families of political prisoners sentenced to death staged protests demanding the revocation of all execution orders. Chanting “No to the execution of anyone!” they called for an end to the regime’s policy of mass executions.
In the 90th week of the campaign, citizens in Tehran, Songhor, Ardabil, Marand, Isfahan, Babol, Somehsara, Lahijan, Tabriz, Sabzevar, Rasht, Fuman, Rudsar, Mashhad, Qom, Sanandaj, Saravan, Chalus, Borazjan, and dozens of other cities joined the movement. Carrying placards that read “No to Executions,” “Stop the Killings,” and “Life is Everyone’s Right,” protesters demanded an immediate end to the wave of executions in Iran.
