The article is an open letter of solidarity from former and current political prisoners, activists, and scholars who write to Iranian political prisoners being held in various detention centers across Iran. They express their support and denounce the repression of the Iranian people by both domestic forces (the Islamic Republic) and foreign powers (US and Israel). The letter highlights the "dual oppression" faced by these prisoners, caught between the regime's torture and execution and the imperialist forces' aggression. In the past year, there has been a surge in arbitrary arrests, state executions, and criminalization of certain groups, such as Kurds, Arabs, and Baloch.
Written by the local model on 2026-08-20,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Story summary
Iranian political prisoners, including activists, students, thinkers, workers, artists, and other prisoners of conscience, are facing brutal conditions within Iran's prisons, including torture, systematic neglect, enforced silence, sham trials, and executions. The situation has echoes in the country's history, particularly the 1988 mass executions, which occurred around this time last year, and the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. The open letter, written by a group of activists and scholars committed to abolition and anti-imperialism, calls for unconditional support and solidarity from global civil society to challenge Iran's narrative and put pressure on the government to stop executions and free all political prisoners. The letter also denounces the repression of the Iranian people and their prisoners by both domestic and foreign forces, including US-Israeli military assaults against Iran.
Written for “Iran's Imprisoned Activists” on 2026-08-31,
grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.
August marks the anniversary of the 1988 mass executions in Iran, a horror that echoes in the country’s current surge in death sentences.
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It also marks the 19 August anniversary of the UK- and US-orchestrated coup against the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953.
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Amid the current, indiscriminate waves of US-Israeli military assaults against Iran, this letter of solidarity denounces the repression of the Iranian people and their political prisoners by forces both at home and abroad.
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letter → denounce → home
To our fellow activists, students, thinkers, workers, artists, and other prisoners of conscience held behind the walls of all detention centers across Iran:
We write to you from a place of deep solidarity, our hearts heavy with the knowledge of the struggle you face within Iran’s prisons: the torture, the systematic neglect, the enforced silence, and the brutal reality of sham trials and executions.
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As former and current political prisoners, activists, and scholars committed to the global project of abolition, anti-authoritarianism and anti-imperialism, we see you across the distances of geography and the silence of censorship and internet blackouts.
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And we stand in solidarity with you, as you are at the intersection of two sources of oppression.
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On one side, you face the Islamic Republic that, from its inception, enforced absolute social and political control based on an exclusionary ideology.
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It is a system that claims to counter imperial power while using its very logic of domination and systems of carcerality, torture and execution.
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that → claim → carcerality
On the other side, you face the aggression and violence of the very imperialist and Zionist forces the Islamic Republic purports to stand against.
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The US and Israel instigate brutal wars, destroy civilian infrastructure, kill innocent schoolgirls, and treat you as collateral damage in their pursuit of regional dominance.
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We remember the horror of 23 June 2025, when Israel struck the Evin prison complex, flattening its hospital ward, transgender section, and visitor center.
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Israel → remember → ward
You best exposed this dual oppression when you voiced that you “feel stuck between the two blades of a scissors, the evil regime that imprisons and tortures [you] and a foreign force dropping bombs on [your] heads in the name of freedom”.
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In the past year, we witnessed both blades of the scissor sharpen.
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We see the arbitrary arrests and the horrific wave of state executions.
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We see the deepening criminalization of the working class and unemployed, the targeting of Kurds, Arabs, and Baloch, and the scapegoating of Afghan migrants: all desperate attempts to kill the spirit of people they cannot contain.
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This is the logic of carceral states everywhere: when they fail to address the crises people face, they simply attempt to criminalize or disappear the people themselves.
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they → fail → people
We see the same logic of domination when Israel uses “administrative detention” to hold Palestinian political prisoners for years without charge.
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Israel → see → charge
We see it when Israeli authorities celebrate a new law that allows them to execute the Palestinian political prisoners they cannot dominate.
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We see it in the ICE detention centers where the US government imprisons our people in the pursuit of a political agenda of racist exclusion or detains our political activists for daring to speak against the US-backed Israeli genocide.
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government → see → genocide
We see it in the history of the US targeting freedom fighters, particularly Black, Indigenous, Puerto Rican and other anticolonial organizers, locking them away for decades to crush movements for national liberation and sovereignty.
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And we see the connections between these carceral systems sharing intelligence and governance techniques, such as when the USP Marion prison in Illinois became a blueprint for prisons built in Iran and Israel in the 1960s.
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prison → see → 1960s
Whether it is a border wall or a prison gate, the goal is the same: to silence people through fear, domination, and isolation.
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goal → silence → fear
We stand with you, and we reject the false binary of imperialism and hollow anti-imperialism.
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We invite global civil society and anti-imperialist activists and organizations to extend their unconditional support and solidarity to all incarcerated kin fighting for our collective liberation, to build relationships with Iranian political prisoners and uplift their voices, to put pressure on the Islamic Republic by challenging its narrative, and to call upon that government to immediately stop all the executions and free all political prisoners.
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The Iranian authorities must stop their inhumane practice of death and incarceration now.
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And the US and Israel must end their barbaric wars and brutal sanctions that knowingly devastate our communities.
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founder and co-editor of Jadaliyya
Walden F Bello, international adjunct professor of sociology, *State University of New York at Binghamton
Yasin al-Haj Saleh, Syrian writer, political dissident, and former political prisoner in Syria
* Organizations for identification purposes only
** Signatories are sorted alphabetically
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