With great joy, the 13k followers of Free.Nahid read the following words by Mariam Claren on January 13.

After more than 4 years of her political imprisonment in the Islamic Republic of Iran, I hugged my mother Nahid Taghavi at the airport yesterday... While I am overjoyed that my mother is safe at home, I remember all those who are still trapped behind the high prison walls …For  Pakhshan Azizi. For Verisheh Moradi. And for all political prisoners. We are not free until everyone is free.

The Burn The Cage/Free the Birds movement in Europe summed up the background and significance of the fight to free Nahid Taghavi, an activist who is a German-Iranian dual citizen.

Nahid Taghavi was arrested in October 2020 while living in Iran. The charges against her included acting against national security, propagandizing against the regime, and participating in the establishment and management of an illegal group. After seven months of solitary confinement and interrogation, the Revolutionary Court sentenced her to 10 years and eight months in prison. She endured many physical problems after she turned 70 years old in prison.

After her mother was arrested, Mariam Claren made great efforts to free her mother by forming the Free.Nahid Campaign...

Happy freedom. Hoping for the release of all political prisoners in Iran

With the release of Nahid Taghavi, only Mehran Raoof remains in prison from among the  defendants in a June 2021 sham trial of Iranian activists. Mehran is a British-Iranian dual citizen, activist and translator with no family in Iran. Like Nahid, he was sentenced to 10+ years in prison and should have been eligible for parole after serving one-third of that sentence.

As their co-defendant Bahareh Soleimani tweeted on the day of Nahid’s release: “In this case, Mehran Raoof is the only one who remains in prison. Four years and three months, without leave and without visits. He is 68 years old.” Mehran, a diabetic, has been denied health care, and was subjected to prolonged solitary confinement and interrogation. Now more than ever people should shine a light on his case and be his advocate and his voice for his immediate release.

“No to Execution Tuesdays” Hunger Strike Grows to 34 Prisons on Eve of One Year Anniversary

On the 51st week of the prisoners-led “No to Execution Tuesdays” hunger strike movement, the number of prisons joining the weekly protest rose to 34. As a map of their locations shows, these prisoners are spread across the whole country, at the same time as there is a concentration in regions with majority populations of oppressed nationalities (or ethnic minorities), such as Kurds in Kurdistan and West and East Azerbaijan, and Gilaks in Gilan, as well as in and around the capital, Tehran.

Actions have been announced in different cities around the world to mark the anniversary of this strike, which falls on January 28, 2025, by demanding an end to executions in Iran.

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Overturn the Death Sentences of Pakhshan Azizi and Verisheh Moradi and All Prisoners

The death sentences against two Kurdish activist women, Pakhshan Azizi and Verisheh Moradi, continue to spark great outrage in Iran and in the Iranian diaspora, focusing the struggle against all executions. Both women are longtime activists who separately aided women and children in refugee camps in war-torn Kurdish regions in Syria and Iraq. Pakhshan is a social worker; Verisheh taught sports therapy to refugee children. In either case, their “crime” is only alleged association with Kurdish opposition groups which supposedly have armed wings. The Islamic Republic of Iran, by threatening and executing large numbers of Kurds, seeks to associate the national struggle of Kurds with “anti-Iranian outsiders”, in particular the U.S., which has used pro-imperialist Kurdish forces in Syria especially as cannon fodder against ISIS and the now-fallen Assad regime. And these executions also aim to terrorize a whole section of the population in Iran and the Middle East with histories of rebellion and revolution.

On January 15, in Sanandaj, the second largest city in Kurdistan province, a group of women activists stepped out boldly to publicly protest the death sentence of Pakhshan Azizi and for the release of all political prisoners. This is noteworthy because the Kurdish region in Iran, a vibrant site of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising of Fall 2022, was the scene of some of the most draconian repression during that uprising for months. Protests by women in Sanandaj have continued since then, but usually off the streets and covering their faces. In this light, these women’s brave stand reflects their sense of urgency to stop the executions, most immediately that of Pakhshan Azizi.

Translation of caption: “Today, January 15, 2025, a group of women activists held a rally in front of the Kurdistan Provincial Building to protest the confirmation of the death sentence of #PakhshanAzizi and call for the immediate cancellation of this sentence and the release of all political and ideological prisoners.”

The Kurdish Students National Committee also posted a statement in support of Pakhshan Azizi which started out, “The Hangman Republic is once again looking for an innocent neck”. It calls the death sentences “a sign of failure and weakness of the Islamic Republic in front of the people, especially the women of this land, and strongly condemns it.”

Stop the Execution of Pakhshan Azizi and Verisheh Moradi! Stand With “No to Execution Tuesday” Hunger Strikes! End Executions and Free All Political Prisoners in Iran NOW! No to US Threats and War Moves!

“We will not be satisfied with anything less than the downfall of the oppressors”

Until a moment ago, she was by your side. You would have been drinking tea together and walking side-by-side in the dreary prison evening. Then she is gone suddenly and forever, never to return. This is the most bitter reality of prison. They come and snatch one of us, and kill her. Sometimes they return her lifeless body to her family, sometimes not.

The suffering of prison is not because of the walls or the endless futility that never loosens its grip, but from the constant dread that shadows each tedious night: that this night that may be her last, and your hands are tied. The guards will come to take her away, the doors slamming one by one, her voice growing dimmer until it is lost to you. On the last night of her life, sitting or standing, she will wait for the morning call to prayer and the sunrise that will be her sunset....

... The anguish of prison is heightened and given new meaning when you see your cellmate sent to the gallows. This kind of suffering changes you, it tears open your soul and toughens you, so nothing can make you tired, nothing can slow you down. You are dissatisfied with anything less than actual liberation. You become a link in what my comrades call the chain of free people, the chain forged from the resistance of friends who continued to cry out for liberation, despite the boots and blows of the dictatorships of Shah¹ and Sheikh [the Mullahs]….

... During years of living in the environment of security prisons and in forced coexistence with the [prison administration] that rains down endless repression, I have come to believe that we cannot be satisfied with anything less than the downfall of the oppressors. What we see going on today reflects the desperation of the servants of religious and royal tyranny.

The conditions of struggle are not always the same for all of us, but the important thing is that our resistance is of the same kind…that it is like that of the “Golsorkhis”² who refused to bow down to the regime’s courts, and put the defending the people ahead of defending themselves.

The above is excerpted from a letter from Evin prisoner Golrokh Iraee³ on January 1, 2025. Her full letter is posted on the IEC website. It is providing a visceral as well as lofty view of the leftist political prisoners, especially the women, who are calling on the world to note their humanity and their hopes for liberation and a far better world.

Kurdish Woman in Danger of Execution Amid Regime’s Rampant Hangings

The Islamic Republic of Iran lurched into 2025 by lashing out, having hanged some 900 people in 2024 and ramping up death sentences for 2025. At least 54 political prisoners have been sentenced to death in opaque trials, torture and no legal representation, says a recent HRANA report.⁴ First on the list are two women activists of the Kurdish oppressed nationality⁵: Pakhshan Azizi and Varisheh Moradi.

On January 8, Pakhshan Azizi’s lawyer, Amir Raesian, reported that Iran’s Supreme Court denied her appeal of her July 2024 trial and affirmed a death sentence for the unfounded charge of “armed rebellion.” Pakhshan Azizi is a longtime activist and social worker who rendered humanitarian aid to women and children in refugee camps in war-torn Kurdish regions in Syria and Iraq. She has been subjected to horrific torture, including guards carrying out mock executions and burying her alive 10 meters underground [approx. 33 feet]. If Pakhshan is executed, she will be the first woman political prisoner executed in 14 years, establishing a terrible precedent.⁶

The heightened execution threat to Pakhshan Azizi (as well as to Behrouz Ehsani and Mehdi Hassani, two other political prisoners whose death sentences were confirmed) sparked widespread outrage and acts of solidarity. Statements condemning the death sentences came from diverse forces including the Kurdish Women’s Union. Inside Iranian prisons, 68 prisoners signed a statement⁷ protesting the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the death sentences of her and two other political prisoners:

We call on the people of Iran, as well as international forums and organizations, especially human rights organizations, to use all their capacities to take effective measures in order to save the lives of political prisoners who are at risk of the death penalty, as well as the abolition of the death penalty altogether.

On January 9, a letter from a member of Iran’s Teacher’s Union was posted by @burnthecage challenging fellow teachers in saying:

…teachers have a duty to speak out against the highest level of violence in society, namely structural and targeted violence such as executions. How can one be against violence in school but remain silent about violence in society?... But the problem is not limited to the government, the silence of society in the face of this repression also plays an important role in the continuation of this trend. A society that is indifferent to executions is practically [complicit] in this violence… Without a doubt, as the striking prisoners in the “No to Execution Tuesdays” campaign have emphasized, the only way to stop the execution machine is through unity and collective action. Although this path is difficult, by abandoning sectarian behavior and adopting a humane and collective approach, results can be achieved.

On January 10, award-winning Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi posted on Instagram a statement condemning the death penalty that said in part, “These executions reflect the political, ideological and economic collapse of the Islamic Republic system.” And rebel rapper Toomaj Salehi’s X account posted these words: “For a free world / For speaking freely / For #PakhshanAzizi / No to executions.” By the next day multiple videos show the same words sprayed onto walls across Tehran, Iran’s capital.

“We cannot and will not remain silent” — Sepideh Gholian

Sepideh Gholian,⁸ a courageous young journalist and leftist political prisoner held in Evin, responded to the news of Pakhshan Azizi’s death sentence confirmation with a letter posted by @burnthecage. Read this and her second letter in full here.

Pakhshan is a symbol of love for humanity. But now she is facing a death that does not stem from justice but from hatred and revenge…. But this is not just the story of one person…. The story of Pakhshan is tied to the story of all of us, to the story of the expectant mothers whose children's blood is on the streets, to the story of the people for whom "life" has become a dream…. We cannot and will not remain silent. If we do not raise our voices today, tomorrow it will be yet another story. We want you to strengthen this chain. Don't let the story of Pakhshan be an endless story of regret and silence. Be her voice, be her story. We must fight "death" with "life." Let's make a chain out of life, against every loop of the hangman's rope. Will you take my hand to be the next link in the chain?
--Sepideh Gholian, Women's Ward, Evin Prison, January 12, 2025

U.S.: Bloody Hands Out of Iran and the Middle East!

Amidst this situation, the website Akhbar-Rooz reported that former U.S. Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo spoke at a January 9 conference in Paris, organized and sponsored by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK). It is important that Iran’s political prisoners call for a non-sectarian approach to defending and freeing all political prisoners, of diverse political perspectives, given the lack of any semblance of due process in Iran’s fascist theocracy. But it should be noted that there is a section of Iran’s political prisoners such as Golrokh who oppose both the U.S. (who backed the Shah) as well as the current Islamic (mullah) regime. Forces such as the MEK have cozied up to fascist ruling forces in the U.S. for years, including during the first Trump presidency, and do not represent any kind of liberating alternative to the Islamic Republic fascist theocrats.

Stand with Iran’s Heroic Prisoners, Mark Anniversary of Weekly Hunger Strike

The end of January 2025 marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the “No to Execution Tuesdays,” the weekly hunger strike launched by political prisoners in the huge Ghezel Hesar prison. It has now spread to 30 prisons throughout the country. People throughout the world should find ways to join or share support for these heroic prisoners. Stay tuned to further news from the IEC on activities in solidarity with this prisoner-led movement against executions in Iran.

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1. The Shah of Iran was a brutal monarch installed through a coup in 1953 led by U.S. and UK espionage agencies after the elected president nationalized the oil resources. See American Crime Case #98: 1953 CIA Coup in Iran.

2. Khosrow Golsorkhi was a revolutionary and communist who famously denounced the regime and upheld the peoples during his 1974 trial, before being executed by the Shah’s firing squad. He is regarded as a hero, and through the years his fierce resistance has been emulated by other revolutionaries who similarly are affectionately known as “Golsorkhis.”

3. Golrokh Iraee was accused of "propaganda against the state" for posting about Woman, Life, Freedom protests and denouncing the state’s killing of minors during the protests. Violently arrested at her home on September 26, 2022, Golrokh Iraee had only been out of prison since May 2022 after serving three years. Previously, she was charged with "insulting the sacred" and "propaganda against the regime." The evidence: she wrote an unpublished story about stoning that was confiscated during a raid of her home by the Revolutionary Guards, aimed at her husband, human rights defender and former student activist Arash Sadeghi. Gallery.

4. The Latest Comprehensive List of 54 Political and Security Prisoners Sentenced to Death in Iran, en-hrana.org, January 9, 2025.

5. Kurds share a common language, history and territory, which was divided by colonial powers between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, where they have been murderously oppressed for decades.

6. Imminent Risk of Execution of Kurdish Woman Activist After Grossly Unfair Trial, iranhumanrights.org, January 9, 2025.

7. Posted in Farsi at Akhbar-rooz.

8. Sepideh is a lifelong civil rights activist and writer who has been in and out of prison since she was 23 years old. In 2018, she was arrested for solidarity with sugar workers' protests and charged with "Propaganda against the state; membership in organizations that aim to disrupt national security," then re-arrested in 2019 for denouncing torture and sexual abuse while in prison. In March 2023, after her release, she famously shouted outside Evin Prison, "Khamenei, the Zahak! We will bury you!" Zahak was a mythological king with serpents growing out of his shoulders which he fed with young people's brains. Just four hours later, the car caravan of her family taking her home was stopped, and she was arrested. Gallery.