NCRI – In reaction to the international condemnation and outrage over the execution of political prisoners in Iran, Judiciary Spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad claimed brazenly, “The execution of political prisoners is a lie. Those claiming to be political prisoners are terrorists, bombers, and murderers.” With these remarks, the mullahs’ regime is setting the stage to execute even more political prisoners.
The Judiciary’s spokesman claims come at a time when the mullahs have already executed over 120,000 political prisoners during the past 25 years and censured 52 times by different United Nations Organs for the persistent and flagrant human rights violations, including political executions.
In mullahs’ logic, all dissidents and opponents are considered criminals. Accordingly, the 30,000 political prisoners were massacred as terrorists in summer 1988 for refusing to denounce the People’s Mojahedin. The teenagers or pregnant women, executed for simply sympathizing with the Mojahedin or distributing leaflets or newspapers, were considered as murderers. And hundreds of elderly parents who were shot by firing squads because their children were members of the Resistance, were considered as bombers.
Most political prisoners have been executed without any trial or were sentenced to death in kangaroo courts where a mullah plays the role of the judge, the prosecutor, the lawyer, and the jury all at the same time. Most of the 30,000 political prisoners who were executed during 1988, had previously been sentenced to prison terms in the same courts. Some had even completed their prison terms.
Competent international bodies, including the United Nations Human Rights Commission Rapporteurs, emphasized in many reports that many of the political prisoners have been executed under the pretext of ordinary crimes, including drug trafficking. In the meantime, in the past few months, the mullahs’ regime has dramatically stepped up the execution of prisoners on ordinary charges. Yesterday, 10 prisoners were hanged in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
In a letter to Mrs. Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Mohammad Mohaddessin called for urgent action to stop the execution of detainees, especially political prisoners. He added that silence and inaction by the international community vis-ÃÂ -vis the rise in the violation of human rights and executions in Iran has emboldened the theocratic dictatorship to continue and step up its suppressive policies. He called for the formation of an international delegation, including the representatives of the Iranian Resistance, to investigate the state of political prisoners, obtain the names of those already executed, and inspect their burial site and the mass graves.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
April 20, 2006