A group of female political prisoners incarcerated in Iran’s notorious Evin prison have published a letter expressing their condemnation of the regime issuing and implementing death sentences against protesters.
So far, Iranian authorities have executed four demonstrators.
“We, the political and ideological prisoners in the women's ward of Evin Prison, demand an end to the execution of protesters and an end to unjust sentences of prisoners in Iran,” said the letter signed by 30 prisoners.
The women inmates said they had been “sentenced to a total of 124 years in prison through unfair and non-transparent procedures, which is worth a few generations of human life.”
Despite coming from different religious and political backgrounds, “we have come together to say ‘no’ to execution. We defend people's right to live in justice.”
There have been fewer daily street protests nationwide since November as the authorities seek to quell the protests with methods including capital punishment, which has already seen four protest-related executions.
But the anger unleashed by the death in mid-September of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for violating the republic’s strict dress rules, has not subsided.
At a time of economic crisis, it still poses a potential threat to the regime.
The signatories included Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in June 2019 and later sentenced to five years in prison for undermining national security, allegations her family has strongly denied.
Another is former lawmaker Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was sentenced to five years behind bars in January for “collusion against the security of the country.”
Hundreds of people have been killed in Iran after over four months of nationwide antigovernment protests following the death of Amini, with the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)’s latest tally on Saturday reading at least 525 protestors, including 72 children, have been killed and over 19,500 arrested since the protests began.
