{"id":249530,"date":"2021-10-24T10:04:26","date_gmt":"2021-10-24T15:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=249530"},"modified":"2023-02-01T04:40:15","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T03:40:15","slug":"iran-33-years-after-irans-1988-massacre-will-justice-be-rendered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-resistance\/iran-33-years-after-irans-1988-massacre-will-justice-be-rendered\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran: 33 Years After The 1988 Massacre,\u00a0Will Justice\u00a0Be Rendered?\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"summer<\/p>\n

By Hossein Farsi<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the Iranian regime committed the 1988 massacre, I was being held in Gohardasht Prison on charges of supporting the People\u2019s Mojahedin<\/a> Organization of Iran (PMOI\/MEK). The MEK, still the leading voice for a democratic alternative to the current dictatorship, was the principal target of the massacre, accounting for over 90 percent of its 30,000 victims. Entire wards of some prisons were annihilated over the course of about three months that year. My friends, colleagues, and cellmates all were executed, so for 33 years, I have been carrying the heavy burden of responsibility to honor their memories and advocate for justice on their behalf.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sadly, for all that time, most of those efforts have been frustrated by the international community\u2019s commitment to inaction regarding\u00a0the Iranian regime\u2019s\u00a0past crimes. The\u00a0MEK\u00a0and the National Council of Resistance<\/a> of Iran, have been working tirelessly to promote formal investigations into the 1988 massacre and to emphasize that such investigations would surely set the stage for international prosecution of crimes against humanity. In recent months, multiple legal scholars have even made the case for the perpetrators of the 1988 massacre to face charges of genocide, based on evidence that the killings were motivated not just by animosity toward the\u00a0MEK\u2019s\u00a0politics, but also by its role as an embodiment of\u00a0true\u00a0Islamic views.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The legal argument was presented to the international community in the context of conferences that were organized to respond to the June \u201cselection\u201d of the regime\u2019s new president, Ebrahim Raisi<\/a>. In 1988, Raisi was a deputy prosecutor for Tehran, and just ahead of the massacre he seized the opportunity to serve as one of four officials on a \u201cdeath commission\u201d that oversaw the killings at Tehran and Gohardasht Prisons. The death commission was tasked with interrogating political prisoners over their views and affiliations, and it generally asked only one question to ascertain whether a defendant could be deemed an \u201cenemy of God\u201d based on support for the MEK.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201ctrials\u201d before that death commission sometimes lasted only one minute before Raisi and his colleagues ordered the inmate\u2019s execution. Many of the victims had previously received\u00a0lesser sentences, and some had already served those sentences in their entirety. Yet this did not prevent authorities from carrying out the extraordinarily broad, merciless order of mass execution contained in a fatwa from then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini<\/a>. In fact, the death commissions were so committed to the implementation of that edict that they\u00a0didn\u2019t hesitate to kill pregnant women and 15-year-old children in their push to wipe out the\u00a0MEK\u00a0altogether.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is impossible to overstate the harm that Western powers are doing to their own reputations as human rights defenders, as well as to the prospects for democratic change in Iran, by turning a blind eye to genocide and crimes against humanity. The international embrace of Raisi\u2019s administration not only denies justice to the victims of the 1988 massacre but also emboldens the regime to carry out similar crackdowns on dissent in the coming months and years. This is all the more apparent in light of the fact that Raisi already exploited his apparent impunity as head of the judiciary, overseeing key aspects of a crackdown that killed more than 1,500 people after the outbreak of nationwide protests<\/a> in November 2019.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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VIDEO: The untold story of the 1988 Massacre in Iran<\/div><\/div>
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