Iran executed 1,639 people in 2025. That is the highest number recorded in 36 years. It is an average of four executions per day. At least 48 women were executed, the highest number in more than two decades. Ethnic minorities were disproportionately represented among those killed. More than half the executions followed proceedings in Revolutionary Courts that human rights organizations describe as grossly unfair trials conducted without due process. Seven people have been executed in connection with protests since the war with the United States began on February 28. Twenty-seven more have been sentenced to death over this year's protests. At least 16 people sentenced in connection with the 2022 Woman Life Freedom movement remain at risk of execution right now.

These are not abstractions. They are human beings who held signs, chanted slogans, and demanded the right to live with dignity. They are women who removed their hijabs. They are ethnic minorities who organized. They are protesters who took to the streets and are now on death row. And the Democratic Party, which has built its modern identity around human rights, around the protection of women, around opposition to authoritarian repression, has been largely silent about all of it.

Barack Obama has spoken movingly about the Iranian people's aspirations for freedom. During the 2009 Green Movement, he was criticized for responding too slowly to the crackdown on Iranian protesters. More than 15 years later, with Iran now executing protesters at a rate that has shocked human rights organizations worldwide, his silence is deafening. He has the platform, the credibility, and the moral authority to speak. He has not used it.

He is not alone. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has championed human rights causes from Uyghurs in China to dissidents in Russia. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has spoken about the importance of standing with those who demand freedom around the world. Senator Bernie Sanders has spent decades calling out authoritarian governments for executing political opponents. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been one of the most prominent Democratic voices on women's rights and the rights of protesters globally. None of them have matched the urgency of this moment with the urgency of their response.

This silence is not a minor oversight. It is a moral failure with real consequences. When the United States is actively negotiating with Iran over a ceasefire and a potential nuclear agreement, what American leaders say and demand matters enormously. Human rights organizations that have documented every one of these 1,639 executions are calling for a death penalty moratorium and the release of all political prisoners to be demand number one in any negotiations. IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam noted that there was no mention of the Iranian people's rights at the weekend negotiations. None. While diplomats discussed weapons and oil and ceasefire terms, the people of Iran who are being executed at the rate of four per day were not part of the conversation.

Democrats have rightly condemned human rights abuses in Russia, in China, in Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. They have championed the rights of protesters, of women, of ethnic minorities, and of political prisoners around the world. The same standard must apply to Iran. The same outrage that Democratic leaders direct at authoritarian governments that execute protesters must be directed at a government that has just executed more people in a single year than at any point since 1989 and is threatening to execute hundreds more in the wake of a new protest crackdown.

Silence in the face of 1,639 executions is not neutrality. It is complicity by omission. Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and every Democratic leader with a platform and a history of championing human rights must speak out on Iran's execution crisis loudly and publicly. They must demand that any ceasefire or nuclear agreement with Iran include a binding commitment to a death penalty moratorium and the release of political prisoners. And they must make clear that American diplomacy cannot treat the lives of Iranian protesters as acceptable collateral in the pursuit of a deal.

Sign this petition to demand Democratic Party leaders including Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez publicly condemn Iran's record-breaking execution numbers and the execution of protesters, call on Congress to require human rights conditions including a death penalty moratorium and political prisoner release in any US-Iran ceasefire or nuclear agreement, and stand with the at least 43 people currently on death row in Iran for the act of protesting.