{"id":249941,"date":"2021-10-29T07:41:21","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T12:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=249941"},"modified":"2023-02-02T07:28:57","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T06:28:57","slug":"iran-hamid-nourys-trial-and-world-communitys-obligations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-resistance\/iran-hamid-nourys-trial-and-world-communitys-obligations\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran: Hamid\u00a0Noury\u2019s\u00a0Trial and World Community\u2019s Obligations\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hamid-noury-trial-sweden-min\"<\/p>\n

In August, the former Iranian prison official Hamid\u00a0Noury\u00a0officially went on trial in Stockholm. The proceedings are not expected to conclude until April, by which time the court will have heard from dozens of former Iranian political prisoners who witnessed\u00a0Noury\u2019s\u00a0actions at\u00a0Gohardasht\u00a0Prison\u00a0both before and during a massacre of political prisoners that\u00a0has\u00a0claimed 30,000 lives<\/a> nationwide during the summer of 1988.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Noury\u00a0was arrested in 2019 after arriving in Sweden for a planned visit. The underlying warrant was issued on the basis of a principle known as universal jurisdiction, which allows for any nation to unilaterally enforce serious violations of international law, even when the crime in question took place far beyond its borders.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The regime has long\u00a0attempted to justify the massacre through reference to Operation Eternal Light, an offensive carried out by\u00a0the People\u2019s Mojahedin<\/a> Organization of Iran (PMOI\/MEK)\u00a0forces with the aim of rallying domestic opposition to the Iranian regime. However, as many witnesses in the\u00a0Noury\u00a0case and many other former political prisoners have explained, there were clear signs of a pending massacre months before the operation.\u00a0Indeed, the underlying fatwa from the regime\u2019s founder, Ruhollah Khomeini, did not mention any\u00a0particular operation\u00a0but instead labeled the\u00a0MEK, in and of itself, as being comprised of people guilty of \u201cenmity against God.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they brought us to\u00a0Gohardasht, a new period began which eventually led to the 1988 massacre,\u201d\u00a0Reza\u00a0Falahi<\/a>\u00a0a former political prisoner\u00a0and MEK supporter testified on Tuesday during\u00a0Noury\u2019s\u00a0trial. \u201cThey gradually deprived us of all facilities and imposed more restrictions, including assemblies, group sports, and objects that we had created ourselves. The quality and quantity of food degraded. They took away all televisions from the wards. It was clear that they were planning something,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Khomeini\u2019s fatwa had declared that it would be \u201cna\u00efve to show mercy\u201d to prisoners, and subsequent explanatory letters contained such orders as, \u201cAnnihilate the enemies of Islam immediately.\u201d In conferences coinciding with the start of the Noury trial and the inauguration of Ebrahim Raisi as the Iranian regime\u2019s new president, multiple legal scholars pointed to this sort of language as evidence that the 1988 massacre constitutes an act of genocide aimed at destroying entire communities of faith that oppose the mullahs\u2019 theocratic fundamentalism.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The 1988 Massacre of Political Prisoners in Iran: Eyewitness Accounts, Ebrahim Khaksar<\/div><\/div>
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