NCRI Staff
NCRI – Back in 1988, the Iranian Regime slaughtered over 30,000 political prisoners- including children, the elderly, and pregnant women, in a massacre that has continued to the current day.
Most of the victims were members or supporters of the Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), but many were only caught with the group’s literature.
For the Iranian Regime, that was evidence enough and they were subjected to kangaroo trials- presided over by the infamous “death commissions”-which lasted just a few minutes and did not allow for a defence.
Medieval justice system
Taher Boumedra, a former director of the UN’s Human Rights Office, is helping the families of the victims to seek justice and said that Iran has never stopped this massacre- even branding their judiciary system “medieval.”
He said: “This is about an ongoing crime and ongoing executions. And the executions are justified using the same reason – that prisoners have committed “corruption on Earth. There has never been an independent judiciary system in Iran – the system is based on the fact that whoever does anything against the regime is against Allah (God).”
The judges in Iran have little legal training and instead follow the so-called religious laws of the country.
He continued: “In 1988, they were executing people who were already serving a sentence, they were arrested before the fatwa (an Islamic ruling). There were about 70 death commissions all over Iran. Three or four people will sit down in a room and a prisoner will appear and be asked the question ‘are you with the Mojahedin and do you still sympathise with them?’ If you answer this question yes or no, you are kept alive or are killed.”
Murdered children
Hossein Abedini, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), notes that former deputy-Supreme Leader Montazeri mentioned that children- as young as 13- were killed in their masses during the massacre.
He said: “Even people who were buying food for the opposition, and children selling newspapers or disturbing leaflets, were arrested and killed. Many of them were sent straight to the gallows – and hanged from cranes. They were questioned, convicted and then killed within minutes.”
No one has ever been prosecuted for their role in this massacre and many of those who were responsible still hold high ranking positions within the Iranian Regime.
In the history of the Iranian Regime, roughly 120,000 PMOI members have been executed and they continue to be executed today.
UN recognition
Abedini, who survived an assassination attempt by the Iranian regime on his way to Istanbul Airport in 1990, is pleased that the UN is finally recognising the massacre.
He said: “Finally the United Nations after 29 years has acknowledged that this massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in Iran did take place.”
The UN called on the Iranian regime to launch an investigation into the killings but this has been rejected by many human rights advocates, including Boumedra, for the simple reason that the Regime would not implicate itself.
Boumedra said: “The representatives of the families of the victims need an international enquiry rather than a government investigation…It is quite a complex situation in terms of who would exercise this jurisdiction. We need to find a court that exercises universal jurisdiction. We need to make sure that the UN investigates and confirms and identifies the perpetrators, then it will be easy to follow the case with the courts.”
Protests
Currently, the Iranian Regime is facing a wave of anti-regime protests and they have responded in the only way they know how- arrests and murders. So far, at least 21 people have died and 450 have been arrested, although it is worth noting that the Regime has likely underestimated these numbers to make themselves look better.
There are many reasons for these protests- not least Iran’s human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch notes that the Iranian Regime executes more people per capita (including children) than any other country.
