Every Tuesday morning behind the walls of 66 prisons across Iran, hundreds of political prisoners refuse their rations in a coordinated act of defiance known as the "No to Executions Tuesdays" campaign. What began in early 2024 at Ghezel Hesar Prison as a desperate protest against the regime's gallows has now reached its 144th consecutive week—becoming the longest-running and most widespread prisoner resistance movement inside the Islamic Republic .
Today, that cry from behind bars is breaking through international borders.
UN Human Rights Experts Join the Hunger Strike
As documented by the NCRI Women's Committee, senior United Nations human rights figures have begun actively joining the weekly hunger strike in solidarity with Iranian detainees facing the death penalty:
- Andrea Bolaños Vargas, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, joined the 144th week of the hunger strike, warning that at least 46 political prisoners and protesters have been executed in Iran since March 2026 alone.
- Dr. David R. Boyd, former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, launched a 24-hour solidarity fast calling on the international community to abolish the death penalty and halt Iran's execution machine.
- Ana Lorena Delgadillo, member of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (@WGEID), announced her participation in the upcoming Tuesday strike in solidarity with Iranian victims of enforced disappearances and summary executions.
Female Political Prisoners on the Front Lines
At the heart of this 66-prison resistance are Iran's female political prisoners, who have sustained the weekly hunger strikes for nearly three years despite severe reprisals and the systematic denial of medical care . Women held in Evin Prison, Qarchak Prison in Varamin, Sepidar Prison in Ahvaz, Adelabad Prison in Shiraz, Lakan Prison in Rasht, and detention facilities in Zahedan, Yazd, and Bandar Abbas continue to risk solitary confinement and extended sentences to defend the right to life.
In their 144th weekly statement published by Iran Human Rights Monitor, the striking prisoners issued a direct plea to the world:
Defending the right to life, freedom of expression, and the right to protest is a human responsibility that should not be stopped at political borders. Today, all prisoners sentenced to death need our voices. We must not let their names be lost in silence and indifference... Our success in stopping the machine of execution, slaughter, and repression depends solely on our solidarity."
Dare to Ask: Will We Answer Their Call?
The clerical regime relies on executions not as a measure of justice, but as an instrument of terror designed to crush the spirit of the January 2026 uprising and silence a nation demanding freedom . When unarmed prisoners starving in Evin and Ghezel Hesar risk everything to say No to Executions, verbal concern from democratic governments is no longer enough.
