Iranian Women Inmates to Launch Hunger Strike Against Death Penalty

In a defiant act of resistance against the Islamic Republic’s clampdown on dissent, 61 political and ideological women incarcerated in Tehran’s Evin prison are set to launch a hunger strike on January 25. 

The protest, spurred by the execution of Mohammad Ghobalou and the plight of hundreds of convicts on death row in Iran, aims to denounce the increased use of capital punishment by the country’s authorities.

Jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi shared the women prisoners' message on her Instagram page. 

"The imprisoned women will resist in order to keep the names of those executed alive and spare the lives of the hundreds of individuals awaiting execution in the prisons of the Islamic Republic. On January 25, they will express their protest through a hunger strike." Mohammadi wrote. 

The Mizan news agency, which is affiliated with the judiciary, announced on January 23 that Ghobadlou, a man who was handed capital punishment in 2022 for allegedly killing a police officer during nationwide protests, had been executed.

It was the ninth execution reported by the authorities in connection with the Woman Life Freedom movement.