{"id":255178,"date":"2022-02-03T04:37:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T09:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=255178"},"modified":"2023-02-02T20:51:40","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T19:51:40","slug":"iran-guards-beat-mek-supporters-3-times-a-day-before-giving-food-ex-political-prisoner-testifies-at-hamid-nourys-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-guards-beat-mek-supporters-3-times-a-day-before-giving-food-ex-political-prisoner-testifies-at-hamid-nourys-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran: \u201cGuards Beat MEK Supporters 3 Times a Day Before Giving Food,\u201d Ex-political Prisoner Testifies at Hamid Noury\u2019s Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Noury\u2019s<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day, when the guards opened the solitary cells, they started beating the MEK\u2019s prisoners,\u201d Rahman Darkeshideh testified on Thursday, January 27, during the trial of Hamid Noury<\/a>, deputy prosecutor in the notorious Gohardasht Prison (west of Tehran), where thousands of political prisoners were massacred in 1988.<\/p>\n

Noury, an Iranian prison official, was apprehended in 2019 in Sweden. His trial began in 2020, and dozens of survivors of the 1988 genocide shared harrowing accounts of those dreadful days, mainly in Gohardahst prison, where Noury worked.<\/p>\n

Based on a fatwa by the regime\u2019s<\/a> founder Ruhollah Khomeini, the so-called \u201cDeath Commissions\u201d sent thousands of prisoners to gallows after the victims refused to disavow their allegiance to Iran\u2019s leading opposition group, Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI\/MEK). The Iranian regime\u2019s president, Ebrahim Raisi, was a member of Tehran\u2019s \u201cDeath Commission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darkeshideh, Noury\u2019s neighbor and a Marxist, spent eight years in prison from 1980 to 1989. According to Darkeshideh, Noury had actively participated in the clerical regime\u2019s crimes since 1979. It is worth noting that Noury had acknowledged his role in the massacre of Iran\u2019s Kurds a few months into the 1979 revolution. He rose through the regime\u2019s ranks and became a prison official in the 80s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in solitary confinement for a while. Three times a day, every day, when the guards brought food, they opened doors of nearly 38 cells and started beating before giving food. They generally avoided beating us since we were Marxist. But they savagely beat MEK supporters<\/a>,\u201d Darkeshideh said.<\/p>\n

Darkeshideh also shared his harrowing accounts of the 1988 massacre in Gohardahst prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey took me to court, rather the so-called death committee. I removed my blindfold and saw a group of four sitting there,\u201d he said. \u201cI looked at [Hossein Ali] Nayeri<\/a>, and [Morteza] Eshraqi whom I knew. There were two other individuals whom I didn\u2019t recognize.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had heard about the [mass] executions of MEK supporters. We had heard that once one said they support the MEK or the \u2018organization,\u2019 it was enough for the [committee] to sentence them to death,\u201d Darkeshideh testified, adding that he had prepared himself for this type of question.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they had another question to ask from us. They inquired about our religion. After asking me some general questions, [Nayeri] asked me about my religion. I said I do not have any. He said, \u2018what? You are not a Muslim?\u2019 I said no. Then, he asked, \u2018since when you have become like this,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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The 1988 Massacre of Political Prisoners in Iran: Eyewitness Accounts, Majid Saheb Jam<\/div><\/div>
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