In the summer of 1988, in a matter of a few months, 30,000 political prisoners were massacred upon a fatwa by Khomeini, the Iranian regime’s leader. Based on this fatwa, all the prisoners who were still loyal to the opposition People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and refused to renounce it were executed. Many of the victims were serving their sentences or had even finished them. The fatwa was subsequently extended to other prisoners.
A delegation called, the Death Commission, was formed to implement the fatwa. It took them a couple of minutes to determine the fate of every prisoner. Prisoners were offered to choose between repentance, appearing on TV and collaborating with the regime, and death. Experts say this has been the most heinous political massacre since World War II. International human rights organizations and distinguished jurists have described it as a crime against humanity which is not subject to any statute of limitations.
Members of the Death Commission are now among the highest government and judiciary office holders in Iran. Mostafa Pour Mohammadi is Rouhani’s Minister of Justice and Ibrahim Ra’isi and Hossein-Ali Nayyeri are high ranking officials in the Iranian regime’s Judiciary.
The leader of the clerical regime, Ali Khamenei, was the regime’s president in those days. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was the deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. And Hassan Rouhani, presently the regime’s President, was assistant to the deputy Commander-in-Chief. All of them were directly involved in this crime against humanity and have repeatedly defended it. They are responsible for 120,000 political executions and nine criminal deadly attacks on the Iranian refugees in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty, Iraq, which resulted in a large number of deaths.
We urge the UN Security Council to expeditiously set up a special court to examine the Iranian regime’s crimes against humanity, particularly the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, and bring to justice the perpetrators of these crimes.
The UNTOLD STORY of the 1988 Massacre in Iran
