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1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners

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1988 execution of political prisoners in Iran
Ebrahim Raisi (right) and Mostafa Pourmohammadi (left), two members of "Judges of Death" committee, in 2013
DateJuly–December 1988 (some sources say July–September)[1]
LocationIran
TypeMass execution
TargetIranian left-wing political opposition groups, most notably the MEK, OIPFM and the Tudeh Party of Iran
Deaths2,800 to 30,000 people killed[2] (exact number unknown)[3][4][5][6]
AccusedHossein-Ali Nayyeri (who was then a judge), Morteza Eshraqi (then Tehran Prosecutor), Ebrahim Raisi (then deputy prosecutor general) and Mostafa Pourmohammadi (then the representative of the Intelligence Ministry in Evin Prison), Hamid Nouri (then the assistant to the deputy prosecutor)[7]
ConvictedTrial of Hamid Nouri

In mid-1988, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran ordered the execution of thousands of political prisoners. These executions happened all over Iran and lasted about five months, beginning in July.[8]: 8, 13  They took place in at least 32 cities across the country, and were carried out without any legal authority. Trials were not concerned with establishing guilt or innocence.[9][10] Many prisoners were also tortured.[8]: 34 [9][11] Great care was taken to conceal the executions.[12]

The exact number killed is unknown, but estimates by some human rights organizations say that up to 5,000 people were killed.[13][3] Others, such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), put the estimate between 2,800 and 30,000.[2] Amnesty International and United Nations Human Rights Council estimate that at least 30,000 killed.[8][page needed]

Reportedly, most of those killed were supporters of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MeK). Members of other leftist factions, such as the Fedaian and the Tudeh Party of Iran (Communist Party), were also killed.[14][15]: 209–228  Various motives have been offered for the executions. One possible motive was that the killings were revenge for the MeK's Operation Mersad, which took place in 1988 on Iran's western borders. However, people from other leftist groups, who had nothing to do with the MeK's attack, were also killed.[15]: 218  According to Iran's then-Deputy-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Montazeri, officials had been planning the executions for years, using the MeK operation as an excuse to carry them out.[8]: 81–83 [10]

Survivors of the executions have repeatedly called for compensation and for the killers to face prosecution.[16] Some have described them as "Iran's greatest crime against humanity".[17] They were condemned by Montazeri;[18] the United Nations Human Rights Council;[19] and a several countries including Sweden,[20] Canada,[21] and Italy.[citation needed]

Background

[edit]

The Islamic modernist People's Mujahedin of Iran (MeK) had a complicated relationship with Ayatollah Khomeini's government. Their guerilla forces, along with members of the Marxist Fedeyeen, played a key role in overthrowing the monarchy.[22] However, they disagreed with Khomeini's vision about the form the Islamic political system should take. While Khomeini supported a system of rule by Islamic clerics, they claimed to support democracy, women's rights, and a classless society.[23]

After the revolution, as Khomeini's government began suppressing former allies—including liberals, leftists and moderates—the MeK became the regime's most powerful enemy and its primary target. In 1980, Khomeini started criticizing the MeK, calling them elteqati (eclectic), monafeqin (hypocrites), and kafer (unbelievers). He also accused them of being contaminated with gharbzadegi ("the Western plague").[24]: 234, 239  Beginning in February 1980, Hezbollah supporters attacked meeting spots, bookstores, and newsstands owned by the MeK and other leftists.[25]: 123  Simultaneously, the government purged members of the opposition—including 20,000 teachers and nearly 8,000 military officers—for being too "Westernized".[26] They also closed MeK offices, banned their newspapers, ordered their leaders' arrests, and prohibited demonstrations.[27]

The crisis reached a critical turning point when Khomeini attacked President Abolhassan Banisadr, an Islamic modernist, former supporter of Khomeini, and ally of the MeK.[24]: 238 [25]: 153  Banisadr was then impeached by the Islamic Consultative Assembly, causing him to flee the country and call for a "resistance to dictatorship".[28] During the conflict that followed,[28] an "unprecedented reign of terror" was unleashed upon the MeK and similar groups. According to historian Stephanie Cronin, within six months, "2,665 persons, 90 per cent of whom were MeK members, were executed".[29] The MeK retaliated with "spectacular" attacks,[28] killing about 70 leaders of the Khomeinist Islamic Republic Party in one bombing.[24]: 241–242  A few months later, they also killed the party's new leader, Mohammad Javad Bahonar.[30][8]: 30  Remnants of the MeK fled the country.[31][why?]

Later, in July 1988, Iraqi forces and 7,000 MeK fighters invaded Iran through Kurdistan in Operation Mersad.[32] They planned to capture the city of Kermanshah and lead an uprising. The Iraqi military armed the MeK fighters and provided them with air support.[citation needed] The MeK and its allies were defeated,[32] and Iranian leaders have since attempted to shift attention away from the executions by highlighting the MeK's attack, claiming their response was justified against the attackers.[8]: 81–83 

In 2016, an audio recording posted online purported to reveal a 1988 meeting between then-Deputy-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Montazeri and officials responsible for the mass executions in Tehran.[33] In the recording, Montazeri is heard saying that the Ministry of Intelligence used the MeK's attack as a pretext to carry out the mass killings, which "had been under consideration for several years".[citation needed]

Executions

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Khomeini's order

[edit]
Khomeini's order letter

Shortly before the executions began, Khomeini issued "a secret but extraordinary order—some suspect a formal fatwa". The order led to the creation of "special commissions" that were tasked with executing MeK members, who were labeled moharebs (those who war against Allah). Leftists in general were also targeted, and were labeled mortads (apostates from Islam).[15]: 210 

In part, the letter reads:[34][35]

[In the Name of God, The Compassionate, the Merciful,]
As the treacherous Monafeqin [Hypocrites] do not believe in Islam and what they say is out of deception and hypocrisy, and
As their leaders have confessed that they have become renegades, and
As they are waging war on God, and
As they are engaging in classical warfare in the western, the northern and the southern fronts, and
As they are collaborating with the Baathist Party of Iraq and spying for Saddam against our Muslim nation, and
As they are tied to the World Arrogance, and in light of their cowardly blows to the Islamic Republic since its inception,
It is decreed that those who are in prison throughout the country and remain steadfast in their support for the Monafeqin [Hypocrites] are waging war on God and are condemned to execution.

Lockdown

[edit]

Some argue that the 1988 executions were planned several months before they began. According to a report by Kaveh Sharooz, in late 1987 and early 1988, prison officials started "re-questioning" prisoners and grouping them based on political affiliation and sentence length.[36]: 233 [relevant?]

On 19 July 1988, Iranian authorities closed several major prisons, preventing all visits and phone calls and refusing to accept letters, care packages, or medicine from families. Courts went on an unscheduled holiday to prevent them from finding out what happened to their imprisoned relatives. Relatives of prisoners were also forbidden from congregating outside the prison gates.[citation needed]

Inside the prisons, cell blocks were isolated from each other and cleared of radios and televisions. All shared spaces—including classrooms, work areas, and medical rooms—were closed. Inmates were confined to their cells. Prison employees were forbidden from speaking to inmates. One prisoner made his own radio to hear news from outside, but found nothing about the lockdown was being reported.[15]: 209–10 

Administration

[edit]

The executions began that month, in July 1988.[8]: 8  They were carried out by Iranian officials who later held high-ranking positions in the government.[37] According to historian Ervand Abrahamian, in his book Tortured Confession: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran, a 16-member commission oversaw the executions in Tehran. The commission included various authorities from key parts of the Islamic government: Khomeini, the president, the chief prosecutor, the Revolutionary Tribunals, the Justice and Intelligence ministries, and officials from Evin and Gohardasht prisons, where the executions took place. The chair of the commission was Ayatollah Morteza Eshraqi, who was assisted by Hojatt al-Islam, Hossein-Ali Nayyeri, and Ali Mobasheri. The commission traveled by helicopter between Evin and Gohardasht prisons. Similar commissions were set up outside of Tehran, but less is known about them.[15]: 210 

Another account of how the executions were carried out, given by Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and supported by Abrahamian in a 2017 interview, says they were administered by a "four-man commission", known as the "death committee".[38] The committee included judge Hossein-Ali Nayyeri, Tehran Prosecutor Morteza Eshraqi, deputy prosecutor general Ebrahim Raisi, and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who represented the Intelligence Ministry at Evin Prison.[39] Raisi later campaigned for president of Iran in 2017 as a hard-line conservative. He faced criticism over his part in executions but later won the presidency on his second attempt in 2021.[38][39] His role earned him a reputation as a "hanging judge",[40][41] like Sadegh Khalkhali before him. It also earned him his nickname: 'Butcher of Tehran'.[42][43][44] Amnesty International presented evidence that linked several Iranian officials to participation in the massacre. Among them were Alireza Avayi, who allegedly served on the panel in Dezful, Raisi, who allegedly served on the panel in Tehran, Pourmohammadi, and others.[8]: 15 [45]

Most of the prisoners executed were there for nonviolent activities like distributing newspapers and leaflets, joining protests, or raising money for the opposition. Some were imprisoned for holding outlawed political views.[8]: 11  Others were executed because of their religious views—either because they were atheists or for following different forms of Islam.[citation needed] They were tried before they were executed, but these trials were unrelated to the crimes they were imprisoned for. Many of those executed were subjected to "torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment.[8]: 117  Due to the high number of prisoners facing execution, they were placed onto forklift trucks in groups of six and hanged from cranes every 30 minutes.[46][better source needed][47] The executions were not sanctioned by Iranian law, violated international law, and are now considered a crime against humanity.[8]: 10 [48]

MeK executions

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See also: People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran

The Tehran commission began by questioning MeK members and penitents, asking if they would denounce the MeK on camera, help the government hunt down MeK members, name secret sympathizers, identify false penitents, or walk through enemy minefields. According to Abrahamian, the questions were designed to "tax to the utmost the victim's sense of decency, honour, and self-respect". Prisoners who gave wrong answers were moved to a "special room" to be executed. Alleged MeK affiliates, including children as young as 13, were hanged from cranes following Khomeini's orders.[37] Prisoners were told that this interrogation process was not a trial, but rather a "process for initiating a general amnesty and [to separate] Muslims from non-Muslims". Many prisoners believed that they would be imminently set free. One who survived thought he was being interviewed for release during upcoming peace celebrations.[15]: 209–214 

Executions of leftists

[edit]

After 27 August, the commission turned its attention to leftist prisoners, including members of the Tudeh Party of Iran, Majority and Minority Fedayi, other Fedayi factions, Kumaleh, Rah-e Kargar, and Peykar. Like the MeK affiliates, they were told that they were not in danger and were questioned about their religious beliefs and practices. Prisoners were told that officials were asking these questions to separate practicing Muslims from non-practicing ones. However, the true purpose was to identify possible apostates, who would then be hanged alongside other condemned moharebs.[citation needed]

Some prisoners, who were saved from execution by answering the questions "properly", shared information with other inmates about what they were asked. One leftist prisoner, who had once attended seminary, understood the religious meaning behind the questions and warned others by knocking messages on the prison walls in morse code. The officials asked if the prisoners' fathers prayed, fasted, and read the Quran. If they had not been raised in traditional Muslim homes and "exposed to true Islam", they could not be labeled apostates. However, the sons of devout men could be. Refusing to answer the questions because of privacy concerns was also often seen as proof of apostasy.[15]: 212 

This shocked the prisoners. One commented: "In previous years, they wanted us to confess to spying. In 1988, they wanted us to convert to Islam".[15]: 212–13 [49][not specific enough to verify] There was no correlation between the length of a prisoner's sentence and the likelihood that they would be executed. The first leftists to appear before the commission had shorter sentences, with no warning of what would happen to them.[citation needed]

Treatment of women

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Female MeK members faced the same harsh treatment as their male counterparts, with most being hanged as "armed enemies of Allah". However, for apostasy, women received lighter punishments than men. This was because, according to the commission's interpretation of Islamic law, women were not fully responsible for their actions and "could be given discretionary punishments to mend their ways and obey male superiors".[citation needed]

Leftist women, including those raised as practicing Muslims, were given another "opportunity" to recant their "apostasy". Many were given five lashes daily: one for each missed prayer. This was half the punishment men received. While many women eventually agreed to pray, some went on hunger strike, in some cases refusing both food and water. One woman died after 22 days and 550 lashes. Officials certified her death as a suicide, because it was "she who had made the decision not to pray".[15]: 215 [50][full citation needed]

Treatment of victims' families

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According to Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, Iranian officials forbade families of executed prisoners from holding funerals or publicly mourning for a year. After a year, if their conduct was deemed acceptable, they would be told where their relatives were buried. Officials justified the executions to the victims' families by claiming that victims' names were found on notes pinned to dead MeK members during Operation Mersad. Ebadi pointed out that this explanation was unlikely and questioned why the prisoners were not given trials for supporting the enemy.[51]: 87–88  In 2009, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center commissioned Geoffrey Robertson QC to review evidence and witness statements that they had collected regarding the executions. Robertson's report found that the Iranian government was still refusing to tell victims' families where their relatives were buried.[52]

Attempts at concealment

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The Iranian government accused investigators looking into the executions of "disclosing state secrets" and threatening national security". According to Amnesty International, "there has also been an ongoing campaign by the Islamic Republic to demonize victims, distort facts, and repress family survivors and human rights defenders".[8][page needed][48]

Death toll estimates

[edit]

The exact number executed is unknown. Some human rights organizations estimate that up to 5,000 people killed.[13][3][which?] According to a 1990 investigation by Amnesty International, which included interviews with prisoners' relatives, "most of the executions were of political prisoners" in "the biggest wave of political executions [in Iran] since the early 1980s". Between January 1987 and June 1990, Amnesty International collected the names of at least 2,100 prisoners whose executions were announced in Iranian press.[53]

A 1996 study by N. Mohajer, which used scattered information from outside Tehran, placed the death toll at 12,000.[15]: 212 [54][not specific enough to verify] In 1999, Abrahamian gathered testimonies from eyewitnesses and former prisoners. One anonymous former prisoner put the death toll in the "thousands". Another eyewitness estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 people were killed—1,000 of them leftists and the rest MeK members.[15]: 212 [55][not specific enough to verify] Still another placed it in the 'thousands', with as many as 1,500 killed at Gohardasht prison alone.[15]: 212 [56][not specific enough to verify]

In 2008, Amnesty International reported between 4,500 and 5,000 deaths, including women.[57] Ten years later, in 2018, they confirmed about 5,000 deaths.[8] Human Rights Watch (HRW) puts the death toll between 2,800 and 5,000 people.[2] According to Montazeri's autobiography, between 2,800 and 3,800 prisoners were killed, while the MeK claims a much higher number of 30,000 deaths.[3][5][6][13] Ebadi notes that most victims were young students or recent graduates, with women making up more than 10% of those killed.[51]: 90–91 

In 2019, Iranian politician Maryam Rajavi released the book Crime Against Humanity, which is about the 1988 executions. It shows where 36 mass graves are located in Iran and says that about 30,000 prisoners were killed, most of them MeK members.[58][better source needed]

Response

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International reaction and criticism

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In 2008, human rights activist Kaveh Shahrooz expressed surprise that major groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had never fully investigated the executions.[59] Amnesty International's 1990 report Iran: Violations of Human Rights 1987-1990 does briefly mentioned the executions in a few pages, stating:

The political executions took place in many prisons in all parts of Iran, often far from where the armed incursion took place. Most of the executions were of political prisoners, including an unknown number of prisoners of conscience, who had already served a number of years in prison. They could have played no part in the armed incursion, and they were in no position to take part in spying or terrorist activities. Many of the dead had been tried and sentenced to prison terms during the early 1980s, many for non-violent offences such as distributing newspapers and leaflets, taking part in demonstrations or collecting funds for prisoners' families. Many of the dead had been students in their teens or early twenties at the time of their arrest. The majority of those killed were supporters of the PMOI, but hundreds of members and supporters of other political groups, including various factions of the PFOI, the Tudeh Party, the KDPI, Rah-e Kargar and others, were also among the execution victims.[53]

Similarly, HRW briefly discusses the executions in a report about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's chosen cabinet members. They called them "deliberate and systematic... extrajudicial killings", condemned them as crimes against humanity, and accused Pourmohammadi, who led Iran's Interior Ministry from 2005 to 2008, of direct involvement in the killings.[60]

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) brought attention to the executions on 30 August 2017, sharing a statement from three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) calling for truth, justice, and steps to prevent similar events.[19][61] The UNHRC also received a joint statement from five UN-affiliated NGOs in February 2018. The statement asked the UN to "launch [a] fact-finding mission to investigate Iran's 1988 massacre in order to end impunity and prevent the same fate for detained protesters today".[62]

On 4 December 2018, Amnesty International called on the government of Iran to reveal the fate of its political prisoners. They also urged the UN to create a team to investigate human rights crimes in Iran.[63] In their report Blood-soaked secrets: Why Iran’s 1988 prison massacres are ongoing crimes against humanity, they claim that:

Thousands of political dissidents were systematically subjected to enforced disappearance in Iranian detention facilities across the country and extrajudicially executed pursuant to an order issued by the Supreme Leader of Iran and implemented across prisons in the country. Many of those killed during this time were subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment in the process.[8]

Swedish authorities arrested Hamid Nouri, who was accused of helping carry out the executions as an assistant prosecutor, in November 2019. In an article for Radio Free Europe, UN Special Rapporteur Agnès Callamard is quoted as saying that this was the "first time that someone [was] charged in relation to the events that took place in 1988 in Iran".[20] His trial began on August 2021, two months later than planned.[64][65] He was charged with "torturing prisoners and subjecting them to inhumane conditions".[66] The court gave him a life sentence in July 2022.[citation needed]

Montazeri

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Deputy Supreme Leader Hussein Ali-Montazeri condemned the executions. He was dismissed by Khomeini and later placed under house arrest.

One of the consequences of the killings was the resignation of Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri as the heir-designate to Ayatollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader of Iran. Prior to the killings, Montazeri "had taken issue with the diehard cleric on a number of subjects—the trial of Mehdi Hashemi, the anti-hoarding campaign ..." When he heard of the killings Montazeri rushed off three public letters—two to Khomeini, one to the Special Commission—denouncing the executions "in no uncertain terms." Montazeri also wrote to Khomeini saying "at least order to spare women who have children ... the execution of several thousand prisoners in a few days will not reflect positively and will not be mistake-free",[18][67] and "a large number of prisoners have been killed under torture by interrogators ... in some prisons of the Islamic Republic young girls are being raped ... As a result of unruly torture, many prisoners have become deaf or paralyzed or afflicted with chronic diseases."[18]

He also took the Special Commission "to task for violating Islam by executing repenters and minor offenders who in a proper court of law would have received a mere reprimand."[68]

Montazeri was asked to resign, with Khomeini saying he had always been doubtful of Montazeri's competence and that 'I expressed reservations when the Assembly of Experts first appointed you.'" But the Assembly of Experts had insisted on naming Montazeri the future Supreme Leader.[69]

The regime published letters between the two Ayatollahs but "the selection dealt only with the Hashemi affair and scrupulously avoided the mass executions—thus observing the official line that these executions never took place."[70]

On 9 August 2016, a website run by followers of Montazeri published an audio recording from a meeting he held on 15 August 1988 with the special judicial tribunal (Tehran Prosecutor Morteza Eshraghi, Judge Hossein-Ali Nayeri, Deputy Prosecutor General Ebrahim Raeesi and MOIS representative in Evin Mostafa Pourmohammadi).[71][72] One can hear Montazeri condemning the mass executions. Addressing "judges of death", he says: "In my opinion, the biggest crime committed in the Islamic Republic since the beginning of the revolution has been committed by you. In the future, you will be remembered among the criminals of history."[73] The Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) had the recording taken down the day after its release.[74][75] According to Human Rights Watch, the tape had been released by Ayatollah Montazeri's son, Ahmed Montazeri. After the release of the audiotape, Iran's Special Court of Clergy charged Ahmed Montazeri with "spreading propaganda against the system" and "revealing plans, secrets or decisions regarding the state's domestic or foreign policies… in a manner amounting to espionage." He was later sentenced to 21 years in prison, but the sentence was suspended.[76]

Victims' families

[edit]

Despite attempts by Iranian authorities to conceal the killings, families of those killed—and other political activists—informed the national community.[8][48]

Iranian government's position

[edit]

Pourmohammadi, who was speaking in the administrative council meeting in the city of Khorram-Abad in Lorestan province, on 28 August 2016 said: "We are proud we have implemented God's order about Mojahedin (PMOI or MEK)."[77] In 2017 Ali Khamenei defended the executions, stating that those killed were "terrorists" and "hypocrites".[78]

The Iranian government accused those who were investigating the killings of "disclosing state secrets" and "threatening national security". According to Amnesty International, the Islamic Republic has engaged in an ongoing campaign to demonize victims, distort facts, silence family members of victims, silence survivors and silence human rights defenders.[8][45]

Officials implicated in the massacre have subsequently enjoyed promotions.[36][page needed] Public awareness about the massacres and widespread condemnation have "compelled the Islamic Republic to engage in a damage-containment propaganda exercise."[79]

Other criticisms

[edit]

One complaint which was made against the mass killings was that almost all of the prisoners who were executed had been arrested for relatively minor offenses, since those who had been charged with committing serious crimes had already been executed. The 1988 killings resembled the 'disappearances' of prisoners in 20th-century Latin America.[80]

The "Islamic Revolutionary Courts" have been criticized "for holding unfair, secret summary trials without any semblance of due process and in violation of international human rights standards".[81]

UN judge and human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC urged the UN Security Council to set up a special court, along the lines of the International Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, to try the men who were involved "for one of the worst single human rights atrocities since the Second World War."[52]

Motivation

[edit]
Campaigners for justice for the executed, London, 2018

A 2018 research by Amnesty International found that Ruhollah Khomeini had ordered the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners through a secret fatwa. In 2016, an audio recording was posted online of a high-level official meeting that took place in August 1988 between Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri and the officials responsible for the mass killings in Tehran.[33] In the recording, Montazeri is heard saying that the ministry of intelligence used the MeK's armed incursion as a pretext to carry out the mass killings, which "had been under consideration for several years."[8][10]

Scholars disagree over why the prisoners were killed. Ali Akbar Mahdi believes the intense overcrowding of Iranian prisons and the July 1988 Mojahedin Operation Mersad offensive "had much to do" with the massacre.[82] Ervand Abrahamian believes the "regime's internal dynamics" were responsible—the need for "a glue" to hold "together his disparate followers" and a "bloodbath" to "purge" moderates like Montazeri and prevent any future "détente with the West" from destroying his legacy.[83] In particular the killings destroyed any ties, or possibility of ties, between populists in the Khomeini movement on the one hand, and non-Khomeinist Islamist and secular leftists on the other. Khomeini had been concerned that "some of his followers had toyed with the dangerous notion of working with the Tudeh Party to incorporate more radical clauses into the Labor Law as well as into the Land Reform Law" earlier.[15]: 182 

Iran Tribunal

[edit]

In 2012, the families of the victims, along with the survivors of the mass executions initiated an international Commission, the Iran Tribunal, in order to investigate the mass killing of Iran's political prisoners. "Iran Tribunal" is aiming to hold Iran's government accountable on charges of crimes against humanity.[84] The first session of court hearing was organized in London and the second one at The Hague Peace Palace.[85]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Iran: 1988 Mass Executions Evident Crimes Against Humanity". 8 June 2022.
  2. ^ a b c Da Silva, Chantal (20 May 2024). "Grief, but also relief for some, after Iran President Raisi dies in helicopter crash". NBC News. Retrieved 22 May 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d Smith, Dan (1999). The State of the Middle East, Revised and Updated: An Atlas of Conflict and Resolution. University of California Press. ISBN 9781134039227.
  4. ^ "Khomeini fatwa 'led to killing of 30,000 in Iran'". The Telegraph. 4 February 2001.
  5. ^ a b "Iran war crimes verdict looms as opposition seeks justice for 1988 killings". The National News. 13 July 2022.
  6. ^ a b Ehteshami, Anoushiravan (2017). Iran: Stuck in Transition (The Contemporary Middle East). Routledge. p. 108. ISBN 9781351985451. It is estimated that as many as 30,000 individuals may have been executed at that time, in response to a religious edict issued by Ayatollah Khomeini that there was no room for apostates in his Islamic republic. Ayatollah Montazeri also alluded to this tragedy in his memoirs (published in 2001) and the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center's detailed report on the executions notes that estimates of those killed range from 1,000 to 30,000. See IHRDC, Deadly Fatwa: Iran's 1988 Prison Massacre (New Haven, CT: IHRDC, 2009). The insider's account is provided by Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Khatirat-i Ayatollah Montazeri, Majmu'iyyih Payvastha va Dastnivisha [Memoir of Ayatollah Montazeri, the Collection of Appendices and Handwritten Notes] (2001).
  7. ^ "Iranian war criminal freed by Sweden in prisoner swap deal". 16 June 2024.
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  11. ^ "Families Of Prisoners Killed In 1988 Mass Executions Demand Answers". Radio Farda. 5 October 2020.
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  21. ^ Akhlaghi, Reza (14 June 2013). "Canada Recognizes Iran's 1988 Massacre as Crime against Humanity". Foreign Policy Blog. Archived from the original on 18 May 2017. Retrieved 23 May 2017.
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