UN rapporteur joins the "No to Execution Tuesdays" campaign

Leopoldo Maldonado Gutiérrez, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, announced on Monday, 19 October 2026, that he will go on a 24-hour hunger strike from the early hours of Tuesday, 20 October, Tehran time, in solidarity with the "No to Execution Tuesdays" campaign. He is the second UN rapporteur in recent weeks to join this campaign of political prisoners.

In a message on the social network X, Mr Maldonado called the Islamic Republic's use of the death penalty for political motives deeply worrying and demanded that the death sentences be revoked. Before him, Gina Romero, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, had announced that she would join the hunger strike on 13 October.

The wave of political executions in Iran

This solidarity comes as the Islamic Republic's judiciary has accelerated the execution of protesters from the January uprising. Amnesty International had reported that in a single week, from 30 September to 5 October, five protesters were executed after unfair trials. According to figures compiled by human rights organisations, at least 34 people have been executed in connection with the January uprising since the start of 2026, and more than 100 others are at risk of execution.

Amnesty International had previously announced that the Islamic Republic executed at least 2,159 people in 2025, the highest annual number the organisation has recorded since 1981. The most recent cases include the death sentence of Homayoun Shabankar, a 22-year-old protester from Karaj and the execution of Alireza Raisi, a 21-year-old protester from Isfahan, whose family found his secret grave in the Anarak desert.

The "No to Execution Tuesdays" campaign

The "No to Execution Tuesdays" campaign was launched by political prisoners in Iran's prisons, and its participants go on hunger strike every Tuesday in protest at the wave of executions. The accession of UN special rapporteurs to the campaign increases international pressure on the Islamic Republic to halt political executions; the authorities have also put pressure on the families of those executed and even hide their burial places.

In one week, a second UN Special Rapporteur has joined the hunger strike of Iran's political prisoners in protest at the executions.