On the occasion of the World Day Against the Death Penalty, political prisoners affiliated with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) in at least eight prisons across the country issued statements condemning the increase in executions in Iran and calling for effective action by the international community to confront this trend.
Among these messages were statements from women political prisoners in the women’s ward of Evin Prison, including Zahra Safaei, Marzieh Farsi, Shiva Esmaili, Elaheh Fouladi, and Forough Taghipour. Emphasizing that the death penalty has become a tool for suppressing society and preventing popular protests, they called on international bodies not to limit themselves to verbal condemnations and to take practical action in response to the widespread human rights violations in Iran.
In their message, these political prisoners stressed that the people of Iran have witnessed executions and repression for more than a century under authoritarian rule, and that the death penalty remains one of the regime’s most important instruments for maintaining its grip on power.
In a separate message, Parisa Kamali, a political prisoner held in Bandar Abbas Prison in Hormozgan Province, described executions as a tool for spreading fear and intimidation throughout society. She warned that silence in the face of this trend could contribute to the expansion of the cycle of repression and lead to more citizens being sentenced to death. She called on the public to be the voice of prisoners and families living under the threat of execution.
Meanwhile, political prisoners in Evin, Qezel Hesar, Karaj, Mashhad, Urmia, Khorramabad, Iranshahr, and Gonbad-e Kavus prisons also stated in separate messages that executions in Iran are carried out with the aim of instilling fear and suppressing society, and they called for the abolition of the death penalty.
In their messages, the prisoners pointed to Iran’s disproportionately high share of recorded executions worldwide and emphasized the need for both domestic and international solidarity to end the death penalty and defend the right to life.
