{"id":251610,"date":"2021-11-29T14:52:20","date_gmt":"2021-11-29T19:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=251610"},"modified":"2023-02-01T06:27:10","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T05:27:10","slug":"full-accounting-of-irans-worst-crime-against-humanity-is-more-important-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/blog\/op-ed\/full-accounting-of-irans-worst-crime-against-humanity-is-more-important-than-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Full Accounting of Iran\u2019s Worst Crime against Humanity Is More Important than Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"summer<\/p>\n

By Mahmoud Royaei<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

After narrowly surviving Iran\u2019s massacre of political prisoners in 1988, I spent years investigating the details of those crimes against humanity, and eventually published a series of five books<\/a> detailing its planning, scale, and lasting impact. For all the specific information I acquired from fellow eyewitnesses and leaked documents, my research also revealed that there is a great deal that we do not yet know about the massacre, and might never know until after the regime responsible for it has been overthrown.<\/p>\n

Most current estimates for the death toll from the 1988 massacre stand at around 30,000. But this must be understood as the floor, not the ceiling of a possible final estimate. Activists arrived at that figure by carefully analyzing prisoner intake and transfer records from the era, and by speaking with survivors as well as with the relatives of many who went missing during the summer of 1988. However, regime authorities deliberately used mass transfers around the time of the massacre as a means of both streamlining the killings and obscuring their scale. What\u2019s more, many families were subsequently intimidated into silence over their loved ones\u2019 disappearances, and among those who have spoken out, many have faced serious repercussions.<\/p>\n

In September, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres presented a report to the General Assembly regarding Iran\u2019s human rights record and singled out one instance of such intimidation. He noted that Maryam Akbari Monfared<\/a> is serving a 15-year sentence as a result of her participation in peaceful protests in 2009, and that \u201charassment against her increased after she filed a formal complaint, seeking an official investigation into the executions of political prisoners, including her siblings, in 1988.\u201d<\/p>\n

That formal complaint was a particularly bold instance of an individual directly confronting the regime over its past crimes, especially considering that other family members of the massacre\u2019s victims have been punished for far less. Sometimes that punishment consists of mere threats of violence and sometimes it consists of actual violence during extended periods of interrogation following politically motivated arrests. Sometimes that arrest leads to prosecution and imprisonment, and in at least one instance, the father of one of the massacre\u2019s victims was subjected to mock execution solely because he expressed a desire to hold a memorial for his son.<\/p>\n

My research has uncovered countless stories of pressure and retaliation, which have been corroborated by renowned human rights organizations on various occasions. Just last year, seven UN human rights experts<\/a> wrote an open letter to Iranian authorities demanding transparency regarding the 1988 massacre. The letter specifically appealed for an end to the pressure campaign against survivors and victims\u2019 families, but it seemed to acknowledge that the chances of receiving a meaningful response from the regime were slim.<\/p>\n

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