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From the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners Now (IEC)

Women Political Prisoners Spur New Burst of Resistance to Executions in Iran 

Revcom.us editors’ note: We received the following from the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners Now (IEC). 

On Thursday, January 25, the entire women’s ward in Evin Prison in Tehran began their one-day hunger strike. This became a clarion call inside Iran and globally to stop the long-hated execution machine of Iran’s repressive Islamic regime. 

In relation to the January 25 hunger strike, many have reposted and/or created new versions of this 2023 video of some Hollywood artists with #StopExecutions signs.

Two days before, the regime hanged Mohammad Ghobadlou, 23 years old, arrested during the unprecedented Woman, Life, Freedom uprising of 2022, and Farhad Salimi, convicted with six other Kurdish men of “corruption on earth.”1

Farhad Salimi and Mohammadi Ghobadlou

 

L-R: Farhad Salimi, Mohammadi Ghobadlou. Photos: Social Media   

Ghobadlou’s lawyer, Amir Raesian, called this execution a “murder” that is without “any legal bases”. He said “his client's court sentence had been initially overruled by the Iranian Supreme Court. Raesian announced on his X account he received the notice of the execution the night before Ghobadlou was hanged.”2 

The Evin women issued a statement via the Instagram of Narges Mohammadi (the imprisoned 2023 Nobel Peace laureate):

61 women political prisoners in Evin, in protest against executions and to stop executions, are going on a hunger strike. Once again, on Tuesday [January] 23rd, Iran witnessed the hanging of its youth. Mohammad Ghobadlou was hanged under circumstances where even a final verdict for execution did not exist. The news of the execution of Iranian youth has sparked a wave of anger and protest in society. Women political-prisoners in Evin, in protest against the recent executions and to ‘Stop executions,’ will engage in a united hunger strike on the 25th of January 2024. The incarcerated women stand resolute, determined to etch the names of the executed into our collective consciousness. They strive not only to preserve the memory of those lost but also to spare the countless lives hanging in the balance within the prisons of the Islamic Republic.

Be our voice against executions in Iran.

The global response included a statement from the IEC on January 24 that said in part, “We join with many other global voices in urging everyone to find ways to politically stand with these women who are standing up for justice. Emulate and spread their determined spirit of resistance in our collective struggle for a better world for all women and for humanity. Free all political prisoners in Iran NOW! No US threats or war moves against Iran, lift US sanctions!” This statement was translated into Farsi and posted on social media by the Burn the Cage, Free the Birds movement based in Europe.

More than 200 people vowed to join the women prisoners in the January 25 hunger strike. Among them were other prisoners in dire conditions with very limited ability to communicate and many family members, and ex-political prisoners in great risk of being targeted by Iran’s ruling theocrats, such as: 

  • Imprisoned rapper Toomaj Salehi, who is facing new charges of “armed and group rebellion against the regime” and “conspiracy to commit security-related offenses” (that includes a possible death penalty)
  • The remaining three codefendants of Salimi, in imminent danger of execution, on their own hunger strike since January 3
  • 37 female former political prisoners in Evin (see statement) 
  • Temporarily furloughed prisoner Navid Taghavi, her daughter Mariam Claren, and other supporters of Taghavi in Germany
  • Rebel pop star Mehdi Yarrahi, recently sentenced to two years in prison and 74 lashes for his song against the forced hijab “Roosarito”
  • Family members of political prisoners, including the 90-year-old father of Narges Mohammadi, Sepideh Gholian’s relatives, the wives and parents of prisoners sentenced to death
  • Political prisoners Zeinab Jalalian, a Kurdish woman activist with a life sentence for alleged membership in a Kurdish party; Amirhossein Moradi and Ali Younesi, elite university students sentenced to 16 years in prison for organizing student protests
  • 111 union and labor activists in Iran
  • Hadi Ghaemi of Center for Human Rights in Iran based in New York

Significant support statements were posted, including from:

  • Former political prisoner Somayeh Kargar 
  • Iranian Writers Association, university student organizations and Mothers of Laleh Park
  • 300+ Iranian women activists
  • Peter Tatchell, well-known LGBTQ activist in the UK and signatory to the IEC’s Emergency Appeal 

News of the women prisoners’ hunger strike broke into the international news such as CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and ABC News. News also circulated widely on social media in Iran and worldwide filled with the hashtags #StopExecutionsinIran and #NotoExecution.

As Somayeh Kargar posted, “#StopExecutionsInIran is not a request to the Islamic Republic… It is no coincidence that the voice of this struggle has been raised from inside the women's prison this time…”3 

In the week prior to the women prisoners’ strike, many protests were organized by Iranian diaspora in Sweden, Canada, Germany, the U.S., the U.K., France, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Finland.4 More protests are being planned for the weeks to come.

Note from IEC organizers: U.S. fishes in troubled waters

The U.S. saw the outrage over the executions as an opportunity to gain political capital against Iran as part its on-going tensions with the IRI and its proxies in the Middle East, now heightened by the Israeli genocide in Gaza, tensions which threaten to spill over into a wider regional war. 

The grotesque irony should not be lost on anyone that on the very day of the women prisoners’ hunger strike against the death penalty, the U.S. was engaged in the execution of Alabama prisoner Kenneth Eugene Smith.  His violent and cruel state murder took a half hour with a chemical (nitrogen hypoxia) that the American Veterinary Medical Association says should not be used on animals. And while official executions in the U.S. are lower than in Iran, the police consistently kill over 1000 (mainly Black and Brown) people a year, with 2023 being a record high of “street executions.”5

Continue the Fight for Iran’s Political Prisoners 

The fearless spirit of Evin’s women political prisoners needs to spread across Iran and globally. The lives and dignity of ALL Iran’s political prisoners are in the balance as they bravely and boldly resist. The IEC is organizing a night of cultural revolt to free Toomaj Salehi and all the political prisoners on February 24 at Berkeley’s Starry Plough Pub. Contact us to get involved. The call to stop executions is an intrinsic component to the fight to free them NOW.

_______________

FOOTNOTES:

1. Mohammad Ghobadlou was convicted, with no evidence apart from a confession under torture, of running over and killing a policeman during the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising of fall 2022. His death sentence had been overturned by the Supreme Court and sent back to lower courts for a retrial, but the retrial was secretly blocked by judicial authorities, and his lawyer and family only heard of his execution 12 hours in advance. Farhad Salimi was arrested in 2009 with six other Kurdish Sunni religious minority men and convicted in 2018. All of the codefendants were tortured and denied legal representation. Their conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court, but they were retried on the same false evidence. Four have now been executed, and the three remaining are in imminent danger of execution. Executions of protester with mental disability and Kurdish man mark plunge into new realms of cruelty, Amnesty International, January 24, 2024.

Iran: 2 Detainees Executed, 11 Await Imminent Execution, hrw.org, January 23, 2024. According to Human Rights Watch, the IRI executed at least 746 people in 2023. At least seven of them were protesters in the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising. Currently there are 11 political/security prisoners in imminent danger of execution, almost all of them oppressed minorities (eight Kurdish activists and two Baluchs.) [back]

2. “Iranian activists go on hunger strike over execution of protester Mohammad Ghobadlou”, ABC News, January 25, 2024. [back]

3. Former political prisoner Somayeh Kargar tweeted her support: “#StopExecutionsInIran is not a request to the Islamic Republic. Our determined political struggle is against the whole of the Islamic Republic and its system of systematic repression. Execution is a crime that must be stopped – no execution of anyone, in any position, for any reason. Fight against execution and struggle for the immediate and unconditional release of political prisoners!  ... It is no coincidence that the voice of this struggle has been raised from inside the women's prison this time and it should become our general determination to overthrow the system.” Translation by IEC volunteers of her post in Farsi. [back]

4.  “Global Protests Condemn Death Sentences in Iran”, iranintl.com, January 21, 2024. [back]

5. “After Years of Promises and Reforms, the Plague of Police Violence and Murder Got Even Worse in 2023, Only Revolution Can End This Madness”, revcom.us, January 22, 2024.  [back]

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