Reza Mohammadhosseini, Monarchist Political Prisoner, on the World Day Against the Death Penalty

On Saturday 10 October, the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Reza Mohammadhosseini, a monarchist political prisoner, said in a message from Qezel Hesar Prison in Alborz province that "the Islamic Republic has raised its gallows to secure its own survival", but, in his words, "no hangman's rope can bring a nation that has risen for freedom to its knees forever."

Mr Mohammadhosseini stressed: "I raise my voice against execution and repression; against a government that has turned death into a tool of its own survival and imagines that by taking human lives it can break the will of a nation."

The monarchist political prisoner called the Islamic Republic's executions "the sign of a government's impotence" — one that "builds prisons instead of listening to its people, and raises gallows instead of accepting the right to freedom and choice."

Noting that "the Islamic Republic has held the Iranian nation hostage for nearly 48 years", Reza Mohammadhosseini said that "prison, torture, repression, killing and execution have been this government's tools for holding on to power", and that the regime "seeks its survival in spreading terror."

In his words, "every gallows is a sign of the government's fear of freedom, not of its victory over the people. A prison wall cannot bury the truth forever, and the threat of execution cannot silence the human conscience."

The political prisoner described the nationwide uprisings of November 2019 and 2022 as part of the same path as Iran's Lion and Sun revolution, met by the regime with "violence, arrests, torture and killing."

Reza Mohammadhosseini called the January massacre "a catastrophe, a vast and horrifying massacre, and a crime against humanity" whose "scale must be examined independently and impartially, and whose orderers and perpetrators must answer before justice."

He warned of the danger of execution facing those detained during Iran's Lion and Sun revolution, calling it a continuation of the January massacre, and added: "Executing protesters does not change the truth, and does not erase the blood of those who gave their lives from the historical memory of the people."

Stressing that "the rope cannot execute freedom", the monarchist political prisoner called for an immediate halt to the issuing and carrying out of death sentences against protesters and political prisoners and for their release, and asked the international community, the United Nations and human rights bodies "not to stay silent in the face of the political use of execution."