The sixty‑seventh week of the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign reverberated through 41 prisons across Iran this Tuesday, underscoring the growing defiance of political prisoners and ordinary detainees against the clerical regime’s execution machine. Launched in January 2024, the campaign involves coordinated hunger strikes and other forms of protests every Tuesday, turning the country’s jails into platforms for denouncing state‑sanctioned killing.
In a statement smuggled out by participants, prisoners reported that “the regime of execution and repression hanged 29 prisoners in the past week.” Fifteen were put to death on April 29, 2025, and a further nine on May 3, 2025, bringing the toll since the start of the Persian year on March 20, 2025, to at least 154. The statement adds that security forces in Dezful shot dead 26‑year‑old protester Azim Farrokhvand, whom they honor as “the first martyr of the ‘No to Executions’ movement.”
The statement warns that Tehran’s rulers are resorting to mass hangings as their principal instrument of survival. “In the current situation, where the Iranian regime is facing domestic and international deadlocks, it uses execution as its main tool of repression to prevent the formation of protest movements and uprisings by the fed‑up populace,” it declares.
Calling for concerted global action, the prisoners urge governments to impose real costs: “It is essential that international human rights institutions and organizations compel their governments to condition their relations with the Iranian government on the abolition of the death penalty, because the weapon of execution in the hands of this tyranny is more dangerous than any other weapon.”
🔴 67th week of #NoToExecutionTuesdays:
154 executed since March.
29 hanged in past week.
Azim Farokhvand, killed by regime fire during protest in Dezful, becomes campaign's first martyr.The regime uses executions to crush dissent.#StopExecutionsInIran #Iran #en_simayazadi pic.twitter.com/BKy9BCTyhS
— SIMAY AZADI TV (@en_simayazadi) May 6, 2025
The statement pays tribute to public solidarity and insists that resistance must spread beyond prison walls. “We continue to call on all segments of society to stand united and speak with one voice against executions in every possible way,” the signatories write.
Echoing the urgency, the document stresses that hangings threaten every social stratum, not merely political dissidents. “As long as this government is in power, it will not cease executions at any cost,” the prisoners caution, framing the gallows as the linchpin of the regime’s strategy of intimidation.
The campaign’s breadth is unprecedented: detainees in notorious facilities such as Evin, Ghezel Hesar, and Zahedan are joined by inmates from smaller prisons ranging from Tabas to Talesh and from Bam to Borazjan—41 sites in all. By synchronizing protests every Tuesday, they ensure that each fresh hanging is met by immediate collective resistance, denying the regime the chance to normalize killing.
May 6—Tehran, Iran
In tandem with the 67th week of the "No to Executions Tuesdays" campaign, families of political prisoners sentenced to death rally in front of Evin Prison and call for the revocation of the death sentence of their loved ones.pic.twitter.com/aee5SsTfFS— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) May 6, 2025
In tandem with the campaign inside prisons, families of political prisoners on death row held a protest rally in front of the notorious Evin prison.
With executions accelerating and courage mounting inside Iran’s penitentiaries, the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign stands as a stark indictment of theocracy and a rallying cry for decisive international action.