The “No to the Death Penalty” Movement
Executions based on beliefs continue under the dictatorship of the mullahs. On Monday, September 16, the death penalty was officially announced to two political prisoners: Behrouz Ehsani-Eslamlou, 70 years old and father of two, and Mehdi Hassani, 48 years old and father of three.
On Wednesday, September 18, the mullahs’ judiciary also informed political prisoner Mohammad Javad Vafa’i-Sani that he had been sentenced to death for the third time in Mashhad prison. Their crimes:
“rebellion, war against God, corruption on earth, and affiliation with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).”
They were all arrested during the Mahsa movement uprising in 2022.
In his latest damning report, Professor Javaid Rehman, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran from July 2018 to July 2024, described two major waves of massacres in Iran—the 1982 massacre and the 1988 massacre—as genocides. This term is used because the Iranian religious dictatorship executed its opponents solely for their religious and ideological beliefs, seeking to eradicate them.
Nasser Kanaani, spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, wrote on his X page that
“Javaid Rehman has repeatedly served the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), and his clear alignment with this terrorist group has been reported to UN officials many times.”
The Iranian regime’s reaction to the “atrocious crimes” reported by Javaid Rehman is the best evidence of the accuracy of his latest report.
In the meantime, the numbers remain alarming. Since the rise to power of the new president, Massoud Pezeshkian, in August, and the formation of his government, more than 170 people have been executed. These executions aim to subdue society, not to mention the political prisoners. Under the mullahs’ regime, the death penalty is used as a tool to terrorize an educated Iranian society, one that is seeking freedom and progress. The Iranian regime fears another uprising, potentially even more devastating than the one in 2022, which could lead to its inevitable downfall.
During his recent press conference, Massoud Pezeshkian mentioned the “super-crises” that are overwhelming the regime but made no mention of the executions or political prisoners. He has demonstrated that he has neither the intention nor the ability to free political prisoners or open the doors of the regime’s notorious prisons to international investigative commissions.
Pezeshkian has also shown that he neither wants to nor can abolish the inhumane death sentences or punishments such as flogging, amputation, and enucleation.
In 1988, following a deadly fatwa (religious decree) from Khomeini, over 30,000 political prisoners were hanged, 90% of whom were members and supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).
Under the religious dictatorship, Iranian society bleeds every day. Just last year, 864 people were executed. In 2019, at least 1,500 people were killed during the national uprising, and 750 more were assassinated during the 2022 uprising, either in prison or in the streets. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Iranian resistance and human rights defenders, the United Nations has already passed 70 resolutions condemning human rights violations by the mullahs’ regime.
Facing a regime for which execution is a central pillar of its survival strategy, Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Iranian opposition, has launched the “No to the Death Penalty in Iran” campaign. To this day, prisoners from 21 different prisons engage in hunger strikes every Tuesday to protest the death penalty.
She believes that governments must condition their relations with the mullahs’ regime on the cessation of executions and recognize the right of the Iranian people to fight for the overthrow of tyranny.
