More than 1,000 inmates death-row inmates held in a unit of Iran’s Ghezel Hesar Prison have entered a third week of a mass hunger strike to protest regime executions, with some prisoners sewing their lips shut in protest, according to reports.The escalating demonstration at the U.S.-sanctioned Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj near Tehran, also highlights growing international concern over the Islamic Republic's reliance on capital punishment, particularly for drug-related offenses.According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the hunger strike started on July 13, after six inmates were transferred to solitary confinement ahead of possible executions.Other Iranian human rights groups said the prisoners had been convicted of drug-related offenses.WHO IS AHMAD VAHIDI? IRAN’S NEW IRGC CHIEF TIED TO GLOBAL ATTACKS AND ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ IDEOLOGYState executions go up under Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
4/22/25 (Nooses: Photo by Loredana Sangiuliano/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images, President of Iran: Photo by Iranian Presidency/Anadolu via Getty Images)Reports also indicate that the striking prisoners have been chanting "No to Execution" and taking extreme measures, including sewing their lips shut.One media outlet cited a video that appeared to show an inmate speaking to the camera and saying he was going to sew his lips shut because, six days into the hunger strike, no prison official had responded to the protest.The Guardian reported that the video also appears to show an unseen prisoner using a needle and thread to stitch the man's lips shut.In a statement released on July 27, the exiled Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), reported that prisoners in Unit 2 of Ghezel Hesar Prison were in "deteriorating physical condition" because of the hunger strike."Although 15 days have passed since the start of this hunger strike, the henchmen of the regime’s judiciary have given no response to the str...