More than 1,000 inmates on death row at Iran’s Ghezel Hesar Prison near Tehran have entered their third week of a collective hunger strike protesting the regime’s use of capital punishment. Human rights monitors report that some participants have taken the extreme step of sewing their lips closed.
The protest began on July 13 at the facility in Karaj after six prisoners were moved into solitary confinement in preparation for possible hangings. Most of those involved were convicted on drug-related charges. According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency and other Iranian rights groups, the strikers have been chanting: ‘No to execution’ while refusing food.
Video footage circulating online appears to show one inmate declaring he would sew his mouth shut after six days without any response from prison authorities. Separate reporting by The Guardian describes an unseen person using a needle and thread to close the man’s lips.
On 27 July, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI, a coalition of Iranian dissident groups that advocates for regime change in Iran), an opposition group based outside the country, stated that prisoners in Unit 2 of the facility were in worsening physical condition. The group said that after 15 days, the judiciary and prison staff had still given no reply and had provided no medical care despite the urgent needs of the strikers. The NCRI called on the public, rights organizations, and international bodies to press for an end to the executions.
This is the second large-scale action at Ghezel Hesar in recent months. In October 2025, more than 1,500 inmates staged a six-day hunger strike. That earlier protest ended after senior judicial and prison officials visited the site and pledged a temporary pause in executions along with case reviews. Rights activists later reported that the commitments were not carried out.
The U.S. State Department designated and sanctioned Ghezel Hesar Prison in 2024 for serious human rights abuses, including the severe beating of political prisoners who had been on hunger strike against rising executions at the facility. Amnesty International recorded at least 2,159 executions in Iran during 2025. That figure helped push the global total documented by the organization to at least 2,707 across 17 countries—the highest number Amnesty has logged since 1981. The tally excludes China, where execution statistics remain a state secret, and the group believes thousands more occurred. Executions in Iran have continued to climb under President Masoud Pezeshkian.
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