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Weekly Commentary
The 1988 Iran
Massacre Must not Be Forgotten
Sixteen years ago today, Iran’s fundamentalist regime was
carrying out one of the most under-reported political mass
killings of our times. In what is now known as “The 1988 Iran
massacre,” tens of thousands of political prisoners were
summarily executed nationwide in a span of three months,
beginning in mid-summer 1988. Many international law experts
believe that this heinous atrocity qualifies the current Iranian
leadership as a perpetrator of crimes against humanity.
In 1981, the Iranian regime embarked on systematic arrest,
torture and execution of political dissidents. Tens of thousands
of Iranian men and women were imprisoned or executed; members
and sympathizers of the People’s Mujahedeen (MEK) comprised the
vast majority. Inside the prisons, dissidents, particularly
women, were subjected to brutal treatment. Still, the executions
and tortures were not the only reality of lives there.
Resistance against the clerical regime continued even in those
torture chambers. Majority of the prisoners had remained
defiant.
In the mid-1980s, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
was pressing Iran to open its prisons to international scrutiny.
The mullahs had a major problem on their hand: the prisons were
filled with tens of thousands of political prisoners whom the
regime had no intention of releasing. Allowing free UN access to
these prisoners was out of the question. They were the living
testament to the clerics’ barbarism and inhumanity.
The murderous patriarch Ayatollah Khomeini came up with a
solution: Massacre them all. In a fatwa in summer of 1988,
Khomeini ordered the following:
"Those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain
committed to their support for the [Mujahedeen], are waging war
on God and are condemned to execution.... Destroy the enemies of
Islam immediately. As regards the cases, use whichever criterion
that speeds up the implementation of the [execution] verdict."
A special body, dubbed by the prisoners as the “Death
Commission” carried out the fatwa. During kangaroo hearings,
prisoners were asked about their ideological and political
allegiances. If there were even a slight hint of sympathy with
the opposition, especially toward the Mujahedeen, the prisoner
would be sentenced to death.
The state-run daily Iran News, referring to the massacre, wrote
on April 9, 2000, "Officials were astonished to see that these
prisoners were still insisting on fighting the state and
supporting the Mujahedeen."
According to testimony of Kamal Afkhami Ardekani, a former
senior prison official in the notorious Evin prison, for most of
July and August 1988, prisoners, including juveniles, were
loaded on three forklift trucks, lifted to six cranes and hanged
in groups of five or six at a time in half-hour intervals from
7:30 am to 5:00 pm every day. Within a few months, tens of
thousands of political prisoners were executed.
The scale of massacre was so horrifying that Khomeini’s
designated successor, Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri,
complained to his mentor in a July 1988 letter:
"... As you presumably will insist on your decree, at least
order that women not be executed, especially pregnant women.
Ultimately, the execution of several thousand people in several
days will not have positive repercussions and is not without
mistakes."
By any measure, the massacre of 1988 constitutes a crime against
humanity. The current leadership of the clerical regime,
including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, former
president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, President Mohammad Khatami,
current Minister of Intelligence Ali Younessi, and many others
were actively involved in this hideous crime.
With these killings, the mullahs sought to extinguish the flames
of resistance against their theocracy. They have not succeeded,
but their reign of terror continues. At home, the mullahs
murder, torture, rape and maim to silence dissent. Abroad, they
offer lucrative business deals to their trade partners or
threaten them with terrorism, to coerce them into blacklisting
opposition groups.
We should not be an unwitting accomplice to Tehran’s efforts. To
the contrary, we must lift all diplomatic or political
restrictions placed on anti-fundamentalist Iranian opposition
groups to enable them to carry their fight to the mullahs. Doing
so, is in the recognition of the same spirit of resistance for
which tens of thousands of Iranians gave their lives in the
summer of 1988.
(USADI)
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Iran Focus
September 30, 2004
Young victims of
Iran quake being sold to human traffickers
Iran, Bam, Sep. 30 – Nine months after a devastating earthquake
that left behind over 50,000 people dead and more than 90,000
homeless, a new specter is haunting the wretched survivors of
that natural disaster. Human trafficking has become a booming
business, as orphaned girls and the children of impoverished
families are being picked up by organized crime gangs.
Girls and single women between the ages of 15 and 25 were the
biggest victims of the tremor in Bam. Back in December and
January, foreign aid workers complained that the Iranian
authorities were discriminating against women and girls, giving
men priority in the distribution of aid and medical supplies.
A social worker who has spent the past few months tending to
bereaved families said: “At present the number of old men
marrying girls under the age of 20 has soared. Many girls are
sold in ‘a black market’. Many more are forced to marry men 3 or
4 times their age out of poverty. It is the only way that they
can sustain their families.”
Another aid worker said the government has been acting
inadequately to re-designate people. He said that at present the
population in central Bam has more than doubled since the
earthquake struck, as people in nearby villages have nowhere
else to turn to for help.
The relief worker, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of
persecution, said: “Drug addiction has rapidly spread
everywhere, especially among young girls and women. The
government hasn’t taken any action. Something needs to be done
about this.”
Many social obstacles remain, and life has not come back to
normal in the city of Bam. Many who have lost their loved ones,
including small children say that that there is no one there to
help them.
The regime’s state-run press quoted Dr. Mostafa Tabrizi, a
respected psychiatrist in Bam, as saying: “The trauma left on
the young women is increased because of a lack of healthy social
environment. The physical pain that they also have to bear also
adds to their stress.”
The aftermath of the earthquake has provided fertile grounds for
human traffickers. Often working in collusion with corrupt local
officials or, in the case of larger organized crime gangs,
having ties to influential figures in Tehran, the traffickers
work with impunity as they spot the girls and women in Bam and
the outlying towns and villages and take them away to other
cities, to be sold to wealthy old men looking for young
concubines, or sent abroad, often to the Arab states of the
Persian Gulf.
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Reuters
September 24, 2004
Even EU Now is
Losing Patience with Tehran over Nukes
VIENNA -- European countries trying to persuade Iran to abandon
its uranium enrichment program are losing patience with Tehran
and may soon be ready to support U.S. demands for tougher
action, diplomats say.
One western diplomat close to the negotiations between Britain,
France and Germany and Iran said it was very likely Iran's
nuclear program would be referred to the U.N. Security Council
in November.
Iran, defying calls by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said earlier
this week it had begun processing raw uranium to prepare it for
enrichment -- a process that can be used to develop nuclear
bombs.
"It looks like Iran is going to the Security Council," said the
diplomat, who declined to be named. "People now are discussing
what will happen when it goes there."
The European trio has been trying for over a year to persuade
Iran to abandon its enrichment program, resisting U.S. calls for
tougher action to isolate and punish Tehran. "They know what
they have to do," one European diplomat said. "They need to
implement a full suspension or they know what will happen."
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said in New York, where
he is attending UN General Assembly session that the Europeans
were growing impatient with Tehran.
"If we are not reassured ... then the matter will be brought
before the Security Council," he told reporters, adding that the
Europeans were still hoping Iran would begin co-operating.
Diplomats and intelligence officials have told Reuters in recent
interviews that once Iran has enough uranium feed material for
its centrifuges, it will begin enriching it.
Negotiations between the EU trio and Iran will continue in the
hope that Tehran will agree to a full freeze, but diplomats
close to the talks said this is unlikely. Another diplomat close
to the IAEA said that it would be "very Iranian" if Tehran
agreed to a suspension right before an IAEA board meeting due to
discuss Iran on November 25.
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