The “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign entered its 121st week on Tuesday, May 19. Prisoners participating in the campaign called for global action against executions in Iran.
The prisoners issued a statement on this occasion.
Text of the statement by the “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign
“No to execution” and the “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign are an essential principle for defending the right to life.
Continuation of the “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign in 56 different prisons during its 121st week.
The Voice They Could Not Silence: Vahid Bani Amerian’s Final Testament
Iran’s authoritarian rulers have, for more than two months, occupied city streets through their agents and limited supporters, publicly training people in the use of weapons. By exploiting children in these gatherings, they seek to institutionalize violence and repression against citizens and protesters.
In the past week, the Iranian regime hanged political prisoner and Baluch citizen Abdoljalil Shahbakhsh in Zahedan Prison. In another criminal act, it executed Mohammad Abbasi, one of those arrested during the January uprising, on charges of participating in the uprising. This comes while his daughter, Fatemeh Abbasi, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison and is currently imprisoned in Tehran’s Evin Prison.
The ruling dictatorship, out of fear of being overthrown, pursues no goal other than creating fear and terror in society through issuing and carrying out unjust execution sentences. Alongside political prisoners, we witness the daily execution of young people on non-political charges.
We have repeatedly said that execution, regardless of the type of accusation, is not merely the implementation of an unjust judicial sentence that deprives a human being of the right to life. Rather, it is the regime’s most important tool of repression and state killing, rooted deeply in the political, class-based, and ideological foundations of the system of velayat-e faqih. This tool is used to spread fear among the people in order to force the oppressed into submission; but this is a futile illusion.
If today the government is hanging young people one after another, it is because it knows very well that these young people have deeply experienced class discrimination and are aware of the regime’s systemic corruption and plunder. It executes them to instill fear, but it fails to realize that this violence not only does not silence people, but also plants the seeds of awareness, resistance, and uprising in hearts and minds.
We believe that people must not surrender in the face of these executions. The “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign is a necessary step toward justice, freedom, and the elimination of all forms of discrimination and oppression in a future Iran.
Open and practical opposition to executions is a highly important and decisive criterion and a true test for today’s activists.
As part of the broader movement against executions, we in the “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign call on all political, human rights, labor, and civil activists to become even more united in stopping executions. We also ask workers, teachers, students, and retirees, who have so far been the loud voice against executions in streets and public spaces, to carry our message to the awakened consciences of international societies.
The “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign, with hope for a free Iran free from repression and executions, and in protest against the issuance and implementation of execution sentences in Iran, is holding a hunger strike on Tuesday, May 19, during its 121st week in 56 prisons across the country.
