IHRNGO Welcomes Temporary Suspension of Ghezelhesar Drug Executions, Calls for Nationwide Moratorium

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, the strike in Unit 2 of Ghezelhesar Prison ended on 29 July 2026 after government officials met with the strikers and the six drug defendants transferred for execution were returned to the general ward.

The strike began on 13 July when six drug defendants were transferred to the pre-execution solitary confinement cells of the prison. On 28 July, sixteen days after the strike began, government officials met with the strikers at the prison.

An informed source told IHRNGO: “Officials spent the morning talking to the strikers in Unit 2. In the end, they promised the strikers a six-month suspension of drug executions at the prison.”

However, IHRNGO has learnt that the suspension period is restricted to an initial period of three months.

Furthermore, despite some reports announcing the end of the strike yesterday, several informed sources told IHRNGO that they were continuing their strike until the six men transferred to solitary confinement cells are returned to the general ward. 

“The six men were returned to their wards at 10 am this morning (29 July), at which time the strike officially ended,” informed sources said. 

The strikers explained their demand in a message sent on the third day of the strike: “We are prisoners who turned to such mistakes simply to afford the basic necessities of life, and deeply regret their actions. Where else in the world is a human life taken for a first mistake?

Now, these people are calling on you, the honourable officials, to grant them a single-degree reduction in their sentences. We also urge the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the members of its presidium and the members of the parliamentary judicial commission to pass the bill amending the anti-narcotics law, which is currently under review in the judicial commission, during the open session of parliament. This would resolve a major part of the issues facing those on death row for drug offences.”

This collective action was the continuation of the historic protest of October 2025, when more than 1,500 prisoners on death row for drug offences in Unit 2 of Ghezelhesar Prison staged a mass six-day strike, sewing their lips shut to demand an end to executions. Supported by families demonstrating outside the parliament building in Tehran, the prisoners successfully pressured authorities to halt drug-related executions pending legislative amendments. Since the October 2025 strike, IHRNGO has recorded the secret execution of only one individual, Alireza Ahmadi, for drug offences at the prison. 

On 21 October 2025, the spokesperson of Iran’s Parliament (Majles) Judiciary and Legal Commission said a proposed bill to amend the Anti-Narcotics Law would remove the death penalty from eight drug-related offences, significantly narrowing the scope of capital punishment in narcotics cases. However, no text of the proposed amendments, timeline for adoption or details of the specific provisions to be changed have been made public, leaving the scope and practical impact of the announced reforms unclear.

In December 2025, IHRNGO published a report titled “A Village of Graves: Widespread and Systematic Drug Executions in Iran” which provides a comprehensive analysis of the laws and documents over 5,300 executions since 2010 that have disproportionately targeted ethnic minorities and impoverished communities. It exposes severe due process violations such as torture-tainted confessions and denial of legal counsel, illustrating the human toll through the case study of a single village where around seventy residents have been executed and nearly one hundred remain on death row.

The report urges the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to ensure its cooperation with Iran does not legitimise executions by making its funding and technical assistance strictly contingent upon an immediate moratorium on drug-related executions.