![\"iran-ashraf3-1988massacre-victims-min\"](\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/iran-ashraf3-1988massacre-victims-min.jpg\" "\\"iran-ashraf3-1988massacre-victims-min\\"")
<\/h2>\n<\/h2>\nOn July 10<\/a>, Hossein Ali Nayeri, one of the key perpetrators of the 1988 massacre, acknowledged the mass killing of over 30,000 political prisoners.<\/p>\n \u201cIn such critical circumstances, what were we supposed to do? We had to hand down verdicts decisively. We couldn’t run the country by offering them hugs and kisses,\u201d Nayeri said during his interview with the regime\u2019s Islamic Revolution Document Center (IRDC).<\/p>\n In the summer of 1988, following a fatwa by the regime\u2019s then-supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, tens of thousands of political prisoners were sent to the gallows. Ninety percents were members and supporters of the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI\/MEK).<\/p>\n Per Khomeini\u2019s fatwa, \u201cDeath Commissions\u201d across the country were formed with the task of liquidating prisoners who refused to surrender to the regime and remained steadfast in their allegiance to the MEK. Nayeri sat with the regime\u2019s current president Ebrahim Raisi on the so-called \u201cDeath Commission\u201d in Tehran and was the chief judge.<\/p>\n While acknowledging the 1988 massacre, Nayeri<\/a> tried to twist the truth, blaming the victims for this crime against humanity.<\/p>\n \u201cThe prisoners were not tried for the same case. They staged riots in prisons. They were also organized in prisons and received information from outside. They were conspiring again. They weren\u2019t just serving their sentences; they persisted in their hostility toward the system,\u201d Nayeri blatantly claimed.<\/p>\n As became evident during the trial, the prisoners were not asked about their alleged activities in the prisons. They were only asked one question: \u201cWhat is your organizational affiliation?\u201d Anyone, male or female, who said they belonged to the MEK was quickly taken away and hanged.<\/p>\n Nayeri\u2019s interview was a litany of lies, but he failed to conceal one fact: The regime extrajudicially massacred tens of thousands of prisoners in a short time only because they did not disavow their ideals.<\/p>\n He is, of course, not the first official to acknowledge the 1988 massacre and defend this heinous crime.<\/p>\n In 2019, Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi<\/a>, then-advisor to the Iranian regime\u2019s Judiciary Chief and another member of Tehran\u2019s \u201cDeath Commission,\u201d brazenly defended the\u00a01988 massacre<\/a> and vowed to continue hunting down and eliminating MEK members.<\/p>\n \u201cLook! When you commute a sentence, temporarily, for a criminal terrorist in prison, and then he behaves like he is taking part in the depth of the conspiracy and is cooperating [with the enemy], are you supposed to be dimwitted and simplistic and let him carry out any operation? Who would do that?\u201d<\/p>\n Nayeri\u2019s interview comes days before a court in Stockholm will announce the verdict on the case of Hamid Noury (Abbasi)<\/a>, an Iranian prison official apprehended in 2019 due to his role in the 1988 massacre.<\/p>\n Nayeri\u2019s recent admission debunks Noury\u2019s claims that the 1988 genocide never occurred and was fabricated by the regime\u2019s adversaries, or that those who were hanged had actually been killed at the western border of Iran during the MEK\u2019s four-day Eternal operation in July 1988.<\/p>\n During Noury\u2019s trial, the survivors of the 1988 massacre shared their horrific accounts of what happened in those dark days in Gohardasht prison west of Tehran, where Noury worked as an executioner, and Nayeri and Raisi rapidly sealed the fate of thousands of political prisoners.<\/p>\n As the survivors testified during Noury\u2019s trial, the so-called trials by the \u201cDeath Commission\u201d lasted a few minutes, and prisoners were denied lawyers.<\/p>\n \u201cOn Friday, July 29, they turned off the TV and banned any open airtime. On July 30, the prison guard entered and called out eight names, including my brother, Reza Zand,\u201d Mohammad Zand<\/a>, a MEK member who survived the massacre, testified in September 2021, when Noury\u2019s trial location transferred to Albania per prosecutors\u2019 request to hear the testimonies of several MEK members.<\/p>\n \u201cHe gave me his ring and prayer beads and told me to keep them to remember him. I declined to take them, so he gave them to another prisoner and said, \u2018Goodbye. We\u2019re gone,\u2019\u201d he added.<\/p>\n In a message on Twitter in July 2020, Morgan Ortagus, then-spokesperson of the United States State Department, emphasized that the 1988 massacre began on July 19, 1988.<\/p>\n \u201cJuly 19th marks the anniversary of the start of on the so-called death commissions on the orders of Ayatollah Khomeini. These commissions reportedly forcibly disappeared and extra-judicially executed thousands of political dissident prisoners,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Instead of upholding justice, the Iranian judiciary oppresses and violates human rights. We\u202furge the international community and individual governments\u202fto provide accountability and pursue justice for the regime's many victims. pic.twitter.com\/Mr0HpJuJ5g<\/a><\/p>\n — Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox) July 17, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n