On Monday, January 29, 2024, political prisoners in Qezel-Hesar Prison in Karaj began a hunger strike to protest the widespread executions occurring in that prison and others. This protest coincides with a hunger strike by death row prisoners in Qezel-Hesar Prison.
In a statement, the political prisoners of Qezel-Hesar declared their participation in the campaign:
“A Report from Inside Qezel-Hesar Prison: People, Come to Our Aid.”
“Since our exile, we have witnessed the relentless expansion of executions targeting both political and non-political prisoners. We have resisted these atrocities and worked to expose them whenever possible.
However, on Sunday, January 28, 2024, in an effort to silence our voices of protest and suppress the exposure of these executions, security forces raided the political prisoners’ ward. They beat, threatened, and insulted us, destroying and confiscating our equipment.
This brutality is an attempt to prevent the truth about the government’s executions and murders from reaching the public—especially now, on the eve of the execution of four Kurdish compatriots and other prisoners awaiting death.”
The hunger strike by these political prisoners marks the start of the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign, aimed at drawing attention to and halting the Islamic Republic’s execution machine.
At the same time, a group of death row prisoners in Qezel-Hesar Prison announced their own hunger strike. They declared they would go on a hunger strike every Tuesday to raise public awareness about the need to stop the executions.
We, the political prisoners of Qezel-Hesar Prison, in solidarity with their grievances and in protest against the imminent execution of four Kurdish compatriots and other death sentences, announce our participation in the campaign to stop the execution machine. We will join the hunger strike every Tuesday, alongside other prisoners, to turn Black Tuesdays into a call for action until this machinery of death is halted.
Monday, January 29, 2024
Political Prisoners of Qezel-Hesar Prison:
Jafar Ebrahimi, Zoroaster Ahmadi Ragheb, Sepehr Imam Jumeh, Loghman Aminpour, Ahmad Reza Haeri, Meysam Dehbanzadeh, Reza Salmanzadeh, Hamzeh Savari, Saeed Masouri, Reza Mohammad Hosseini.
