It has taken 36 years, but at long last, UN silence has been broken on the 1988 massacre of up to 30,000 political prisoners in Iran. It took the dedication and exhaustive investigative skills of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, a British-Pakistani academic and Professor of Islamic and International Law at Brunel University, London. In an explosive report presented to a special conference in Geneva on Thursday, June 19, 2024, organized by Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Massacre in Iran Association, Rehman described the heinous crimes and gross violations of human rights in Iran from 1981 to the 1988 massacre as a crime against humanity, genocide and possibly a war crime. The title of the report is: "Atrocity Crimes and Grave Violations of Human Rights Committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran (1981–1982 and 1988)."

Based on Rehman’s report, the UN now has irrefutable evidence of the summary execution of up to 30,000 supporters and members of the main democratic opposition movement - the People’s Mojahedin of Iran/Mojahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK), by the Iranian regime in the summer of 1988. As the report concludes, it was an atrocity that must rank as a crime against humanity and one of the most horrific mass murders of the late 20th century. The mass executions, in jails across Iran, were carried out on the basis of a fatwa by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. ‘Death Commissions’ comprising four senior officials approved all the executions.

In a tape recording of one of the Death Commission planning meetings, Khomeini’s nominated successor, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, can be heard protesting that political prisoners, including women and even teenagers, were being hanged simply for supporting the PMOI/MEK opposition movement. Khomeini had instructed that the executions should be carried out in haste and that even pregnant women should not be spared. Because he had dared to complain, Montazeri was removed as Khomeini’s successor and detained under house arrest for the rest of his life. Montazeri’s son Ahmad, who released the top-secret tape recording, was also arrested, and sentenced to six years imprisonment.

Unbelievably, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, a member of one of the Death Commissions, was until mid-2017 former President Hassan Rouhani’s Justice Minister! When his part in the murders became known publicly, it caused such outrage that he was replaced by Alireza Avaie, who was also a prominent ‘death committee’ executioner during the 1988 massacre, in his role as Chief Prosecutor in the city of Dezful. Mostafa Pourmohammadi is now one of six selected candidates standing for the presidency following the death of president Ebrahim Raisi, dubbed the ‘Butcher of Tehran’ for his key role in the 1988 Death Commissions.

Rehman told the conference: “In the past six months, I have been focused on writing this........

© Townhall