On Tuesday, April 21, the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign entered its 117th week. On this occasion, prisoners participating in the campaign issued a statement referring to 52 days of internet shutdown and condemned the execution of political prisoners Hamed Validi and Mohammad Masoumi Shahi, emphasizing the continuation of the strike and the campaign until the main demand of the prisoners—the abolition of the death penalty—is achieved.
Full text of the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign statement
Continuation of the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign in its one hundred seventeenth week across 56 different prisons
Commemorating the memory of 12 executed political prisoners
After 52 days of digital and internet shutdown and lack of communication, which has now been partially restored, we write this statement addressed to the honorable people of Iran.
As we mark the one hundred seventeenth week of the “No to Execution” campaign, the ruling regime in Iran executed two more political prisoners, Hamed Validi and Mohammad Masoumi Shahi, just yesterday.
Execution of PMOI Members Hamed Validi and Nima Shahi in Tehran
The execution-driven regime, concerned about public anger and sentiment over these executions, is desperately trying to accuse these prisoners and other detainees and recent executions of espionage and ties to Israel in order to justify its actions under wartime conditions. However, such baseless accusations against brave men and women—whose only goal is equality, freedom, and the independence of Iran and its people, and who have sacrificed everything for this cause—only intensify public outrage.
Over the past month, the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign also faced another crime by the execution-driven regime, in which it lost six of its members—Vahid Bani Amerian, Pouya Ghabadi, Shahrokh (Akbar) Daneshvarkar, Babak Alipour, Mohammad Taghavi, and Abolhassan Montazer—during the 115th week.
On the night of March 29, dozens of security agents in Ghezel Hesar Prison, led by Ashkan Kamali, Hassan Ghabadi, and Ghasem Sahraei, carried out a brutal and inhumane nighttime raid on the political prisoners’ ward in Unit 4 of Ghezel Hesar Prison. They severely beat the inmates, removed all prisoners—most of whom were members of the “No to Execution” campaign—from the ward, and transferred them to solitary confinement. Six of the above-mentioned individuals, who had been sentenced to death by Judge Afshari, were executed. They were hanged while their legal proceedings had not yet concluded, without a final meeting with their families, and in complete isolation.
The regime also executed four political prisoners from the January 2026 uprising—Amirhossein Hatami, Mohammadamin Biglari, Shahin Vahedparast, and Ali Fahim—in secrecy and without final family visits, demonstrating its continuation of the legacy of Ruhollah Khomeini, who viewed war as a blessing and an opportunity for killing and executions.
The regime, fearful of the Iranian people’s uprising, has so far refused to return the bodies of any of these fallen individuals to their families, thereby subjecting them to psychological and emotional torment.
The “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign sincerely expresses its condolences to the families of these executed prisoners—families who never grew weary and stood with the campaign every week, in both cold and heat, raising the call of “No to Execution,” which reflects the public demand of the Iranian people.
The oppressive and desperate regime based on the doctrine of “Velayat-e Faqih” executed at least 12 individuals in the month of Farvardin (March–April), all of whom were political prisoners, thereby taking revenge on them.
At a time when war and its hardships have cast a shadow over Iran and captured public attention, the illegitimate ruling regime is carrying out systematic executions to create an atmosphere of fear and terror in society and to prevent uprising and revolution. Today, many protesters from the January uprising are held in solitary confinement and the regime’s underground detention cells in complete isolation. According to reports, dozens are held in solitary confinement in Ward 35 of Unit 3 of Ghezel Hesar Prison alone, most of them young, and their lives are in serious danger.
The “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign calls on all human rights organizations and international bodies to act to save the lives of political prisoners sentenced to death and demands serious and practical pressure on the Iranian regime.
We call on all human rights, labor, civil, and political activists, and anyone who opposes executions, not to be intimidated under the suffocating conditions in which the regime has effectively taken control of the streets and imposed a form of martial law, and to protest these repressions and the long lines of executions by any possible means. Undoubtedly, the future belongs to those who have paid the price for freedom.
The “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign, while honoring the memory of these executed individuals, is observing a hunger strike on Tuesday, April 21, in its one 117th week across 56 prisons in the country.
