On July 28, 2026, political prisoners across 59 prisons in Iran held the 131st week of the “No to Executions Tuesdays” hunger strike. The campaign’s latest statement highlighted the regime’s accelerating execution rate, confirming at least 303 executions since the beginning of the Persian calendar year in late March 2026, while declaring solidarity with a massive, ongoing hunger strike by death-row inmates in Ghezel Hesar Prison.
Marking the anniversary of the executions of Behrouz Ehsani and Mehdi Hassani, the statement commemorated the two political prisoners and People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) members. Ehsani and Hassani were sent to the gallows on July 26, 2025, following a violent raid by prison guards on the political prisoners’ ward in Ghezel Hesar. The campaign warned that the families of the two men remain uninformed of their burial locations.
“The criminal regime continues, oblivious to the protests against executions, to set up gallows daily and take the lives of citizens,” the striking prisoners wrote in their statement.
The statement detailed recent victims, noting the secret hanging of political prisoner Mehdi Khanaki last week, an execution carried out without due process. The campaign also warned of newly issued death sentences for political prisoners Sepehr Amirzadeh, Akbar Arabzadeh, Mehdi Arabzadeh, Amir Hassan Akbari-Monfared, and Isa Chari. Akbari-Monfared is a 22-year-old accounting student whose four family members were executed by the regime in the 1980s. Chari, a 37-year-old Baluch laborer and father of two, has been held in solitary confinement. Both were sentenced to death on charges of affiliation with the PMOI.
Beyond highlighting individual cases, the campaign pledged full support for 1,500 death-row inmates in Unit 2 of Ghezel Hesar Prison, whose hunger strike has entered its third week. Prison authorities have denied the striking inmates necessary medical attention. Further escalating pressure, prison guards transferred approximately 140 non-death-row prisoners out of Unit 2 on July 26 in an attempt to isolate the strikers.
“The ‘No to Executions Tuesdays’ campaign stands alongside the prisoners of Unit 2 and supports their rightful demands and strike, and calls on awakened consciences and the international community to be the voice of these prisoners and all those sentenced to death,” the statement read.
Pointing to international developments, the prisoners noted the UN Fact-Finding Mission’s recent warning demanding a halt to executions tied to the “Alikhani Square” case in Isfahan. They also acknowledged the European Union’s recent sanctions against five Iranian judges—Mostafa Narimani, Abolfazl Ameri Shahrabi, Mehdi Rasekhi, Mohammadreza Amouzad, and Mohammadreza Tavakoli—for their roles in issuing inhumane death sentences. The prisoners concluded their statement with a message of endurance, expressing hope “for freedom and the establishment of equality for the oppressed and resilient people of Iran.”
The prisoners participating in the 131st week of the “No to Executions Tuesdays” hunger strike are held in facilities nationwide, including Evin Prison (women’s and men’s wards), Ghezel Hesar Prison (Units 2, 3, and 4), Karaj Central Prison, Greater Tehran Prison, Qarchak Prison, Khorin Prison in Varamin, Chobindar Prison in Qazvin, and dozens of other locations spanning from Tabriz, Urmia, and Zahedan, to Mashhad, Shiraz, and Ahvaz.