In a country where the state treats death as a governing instrument, resistance has taken on a stark and deeply human form. The “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign, led by Iranian political prisoners, has now entered its one hundred and first consecutive week. Its persistence is itself an indictment of a system that relies on the gallows to maintain control, and a testament to the moral clarity of those who oppose it from behind prison walls.
In their latest statement, issued as protests and strikes spread through Tehran’s bazaars and into other cities, the prisoners situate their struggle within a broader social uprising. They mark the new year not with resignation, but with defiance and solidarity. Addressing Christian Iranians, they offer greetings for Christmas and the New Year, while extending a message of hope to all who live under what they describe as “the repression and oppression of the ruling religious dictatorship.”
The statement draws strength from a biblical passage attributed to Jesus Christ: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” In the context of Iran’s prisons, this is not a metaphor. It is a direct challenge to a state that believes executions can extinguish dissent.
The #NoDeathPenaltyTuesdays campaign thanks all families and supporters of its 100th week and calls for stronger support to stop executions and end the inhumane #DeathPenalty
In the words of Jesus Christ: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”… pic.twitter.com/jUp0bpIx8Z— IRAN HRM (@IranHrm) December 30, 2025
The prisoners underscore that they are entering the campaign’s 101st week at a moment of acute political tension. As they note, Tehran’s merchants began striking and protesting against state injustice, a movement that rapidly expanded beyond the capital. According to the statement, it is precisely in such moments that the regime turns most aggressively to executions as a preventive weapon against mass uprising.
They write that the government has “intensified repression and executions to prevent popular uprisings from escalating,” pointing to the recent notification of death sentences for two Kurdish political prisoners, Mehrab Abdollahzadeh in Urmia Prison and Younes Bakhshi in Mahabad Prison. The statement further reports that since early December, more than ninety-six prisoners, including one woman, have been executed in Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad alone. These numbers speak to the scale of state violence.
Families of Political Prisoners Sentenced to Death Support the "No to Executions Tuesdays" Campaign
As the 101st week of the "No to Executions Tuesdays" campaign begins, families of political prisoners sentenced to death have supported the campaign#IranHumanRights… pic.twitter.com/QuFniL4JTy
— Iran Focus (@Iran_Focus) December 30, 2025
What distinguishes this campaign is not only its endurance, but its collective nature. Political prisoners across Iran have synchronized their protest through hunger strikes, transforming isolated detention centers into a nationwide front against capital punishment. In their words, the goal is to “blunt the blade of repression and execution” and to create the conditions for abolishing what they call “this inhuman sentence.”
The statement explicitly thanks families, supporters, and activists who rallied around the campaign during its hundredth week, emphasizing that external solidarity is not symbolic but essential. Without public pressure, the prisoners warn, the machinery of execution operates in silence.
100th Week of #NoToExecutionTuesdays | Dec 23, 2025
This week marks a historic milestone: 100 consecutive weeks of resistance against executions from inside Iran’s prisons.
100 weeks of standing against the gallows.
100 weeks of solidarity with death-row prisoners and their… pic.twitter.com/QiIK2fRcRO— SIMAY AZADI TV (@en_simayazadi) December 23, 2025
What emerges from this declaration is a portrait of a regime deeply fearful of society’s volatility. Executions are not presented as justice, deterrence, or law, but as a tool of political containment. The prisoners’ message strips away the state’s justifications and exposes the raw logic underneath: when legitimacy collapses, violence becomes policy.
Yet the campaign also reveals something else. Despite torture, death sentences, and the ever-present threat of execution, Iran’s political prisoners continue to speak in the language of dignity and moral resistance. Their refusal to submit to silence challenges the regime’s assumption that fear can permanently rule a society.
The significance of the “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign extends far beyond prison walls. It has become a moral reference point for a society grappling with state violence as a routine instrument of governance. By sustaining this protest into its 101st week, the prisoners have turned endurance itself into a form of political speech.