Human rights, in particular, bringing to justice the officials involved in the 1988 massacre, should be at the core of Iran policyHuman rights defenders, dignitaries, European politicians and the Iranian Resistance called for the formation of an international commission of inquiry into the massacre of political prisoners in Iran in the summer of 1988 and bringing those responsible for this genocide and crime against humanity to justice.
They stressed that the issue of human rights should be at the core of the West’s policy on Iran. They urged the UN, EU and the US to put the issue of flagrant and systematic violation of human rights in Iran on top of their agenda.
The call was made during an exhibition on the 1988 massacre that took place upon the initiative of Mr. Jean-François Legaret, the Mayor of Paris municipality District 1 at this municipality on Thursday, August 17, 2017.
In addition to Mr. Legaret, several French mayors including Armand Jacquemin, mayor of Moussy Le Vieux, Jean-Claude Jegoudez, mayor of Grisy-Sur-Seine, and Jacky Duminy, mayor of Ors took part and spoke at the exhibition.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, in a message to the exhibition said 30,000 political prisoners were hanged in Iran in days such as these in the summer of 1988, without any reaction by Western governments.
Those who remained silent over this tragedy betrayed humanity because the mullahs found out that their crimes had no consequences. So, they continued by exporting their terrorism and fundamentalism abroad and drenching the Middle East in blood.
If in those days, the massacre had not been met with silence, today, the mullahs could not sink Syria in a whirlpool of blood.
The people of Iran want to end the impunity of those in charge of the massacre and hold them accountable. This has turned into the Iranian people’s most important political demand from the clerical regime. We urge the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to set up an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the 1988 massacre. The UN Security Council must set up a special tribunal or refer the issue to the International Criminal Court to arrange for the prosecution of the leaders of the Iranian regime.
Mrs. Rajavi once again urged all governments to make their relations and trade with the religious fascism ruling Iran contingent on an end to executions and torture.
Governor Yves Bonnet, the former head of France’s domestic anti-terrorism organization; Struan Stevenson, a Scottish politician, President of “European Iraqi Freedom Association” and former President of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq, were among the dignitaries who took part in this exhibition and supported the call by the head of the opposition.
In his remarks, Stevenson condemned the recent trip of EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to Iran and said: “Rouhani has been hailed in the West as a moderate and a reformist, despite the fact that more than 3,500 people, including 80 women, have been executed during the four years he has been in office, catapulting Iran into pole position as the world’s number one state executioner per capita. Several hundred people have been executed so far this year, including women and teenagers. Three days before Mogherini arrived in Tehran, Amnesty International published a 94-page report highlighting the ‘web of oppression’ that pervades Iran and detailing the catastrophic human rights situation in the country.”
He added: “The French government and the EU should also be demanding a full United Nations inquiry into the 1988 massacre, with Khamenei, Rouhani and their clique of killer clerics indicted for crimes against humanity and brought for trial before the international courts in The Hague.”
Khomeini, the founder of the clerical regime in the summer of 1988, in a fatwa that was unprecedented in the history of Islam, stated that all those who were imprisoned throughout Iran and were still loyal to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran should be executed. More than 30,000 political prisoners who were serving their terms were executed in a few months based on this criminal fatwa. The Death Commissions, in trials that lasted just a few minutes, sent to the gallows any of the prisoners who were not willing to condemn the PMOI (MEK). The victims were buried in mass graves in secret.
In spite of the mullahs’ attempts to impose silence on this crime against humanity and to prevent the spread of this issue in the society, the movement calling for justice for the victims of the massacre in Iran has expanded since last year and has evolved into a public issue. The Justice seeking movement in Iran managed to corner the mullahs.
Ali Khamenei intended to put a member of the 1988 massacre’s Death Commission in the office of president, but the nationwide campaign calling for justice foiled his plans.
During the last year, new information about the slaughter, including a large number of names of the victims, as well as the locations of numerous mass graves which the mullahs had previously concealed, has surfaced.
The 1988 massacre and the conspiracy of silence has been an issue of consensus among the regime’s various factions and its senior officials.
Over the past four years, the mullahs’ president Hassan Rouhani had appointed Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, one of the key officials in charge of the 1988 massacre, as Minister of Justice. The new Justice Minister for his second term, Alireza Avaie, is another one of the perpetrators of the massacre, who has been already designated as a violator of human rights by the European Union.
A number of relatives of the victims and individuals who spent years in prison in Iran and were tortured shared their observations with the audience during the exhibition.
