Press Release – Urgent: Political Prisoners in Iran Initiate Hunger Strike in Protest Against Executions
For Immediate Release
12 February 2024
Political prisoners in Iran, predominantly from Ghezelhesarprison, have launched a hunger strike every Tuesday to protest the alarming surge in executions by the Islamic regime. Despite limited international media coverage, the regime exploits this silence to intensify executions, including fabricated charges against over a hundred political prisoners, with thousands more facing execution sentences.
In a disheartening development, six political prisoners were executed within a week in late January 2024. The bodies of four Kurdish political activists executed on January 29, 2024, have not been handed over to their families, a tactic employed by the regime, due to the regime’s fear of public gatherings and protests during burials. The families have been informed that the regime will bury the bodies, revealing the burial locations months later, pressuring them further by denying dignified burials to their loved ones.
Since January 2024, global protests against executions in Iran have surged. The Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI) and other organizations have urged governments and international bodies to pressure the Iranian regime. Protests within Iran have also been intensified, with university student organizations, families of executed individuals, and teachers’ worker organizations issuing statements calling for an end to these executions by the regime. Shopkeepers in cities across Kurdistan, as well as in the city of Samiram, went on ageneral strike and closed their shops.
Notably, Sixty-one female political prisoners in Evin prison have commenced a hunger strike, triggering similar protests within and outside prison by families and rights activists in Iran, and also internationally. On January 29, 2024, political prisoners in Ghezelhesar prison announced their decision to go on hunger strike every Tuesday, as this is the main day of the week when the regime carries out executions in that prison.
Even as people in Iran, including those in prisons, risk their lives by protesting against the executions, and thousands face imminent execution themselves, the leaders of the Islamic regime continue to be invited to the UN General Assemblyand other international events. Governments worldwide, including the European Union, remain reluctant to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. The IRGC, responsible for crimes against humanity in Iran for over the last 45 years, has been kidnapping foreign/dual nationals and supporting terrorist activities in European and neighbouring countries. It has also played the main role in establishing and supporting terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthi in the region.
Questions arise about the inconsistency in designating organizations like Hamas as terrorist organisations by the UK government while purposefully not doing the same with the IRGC, which trains and supports terrorist groups like Hamasand individuals to carry out kidnapping and murdering opposition activists outside Iran.
Shiva Mahbobi, Spokeswoman for CFPPI, emphasized the need for concrete and decisive actions beyond mere verbal condemnation, such as listing the IRGC as a terrorist organization, expelling the regime’s diplomats from their countries, and recalling their ambassadors from Iran.
CFPPI calls upon all governments, the EU, and the UN to take decisive actions against the Islamic regime before it’s too late. The organization also urges concerned individuals and organizations globally to pressure their governments to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization.
Action is needed NOW and before it is too late! One person executed by the Islamic regime in Iran is far too many! Together, we can stop crimes against humanity being committed by the Islamic regime in Iran!
Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
www.cfppi.org
For media inquiries, please contact:
Shiva Mahbobi, Spokeswoman
Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
shiva.mahbobi@gmail.com Tel: +447572356661
