European Parliament Representatives: EU Should Recognize 1988 Killings in Iran as ‘Genocide’

Over 100 European Parliament members, including 14 former ministers – among them former foreign ministers – have called on the European Union and its member states to formally recognize the 1988 massacre in Iran as “genocide” and “crimes against humanity,” while adopting a firm policy in nuclear negotiations with the Islamic Republic government.

More than 100 members of the European Parliament issued a statement on Tuesday addressed to EU leaders, including Josep Borrell, Vice President and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, calling on the European Union and its member states to “formally recognize the 1988 massacre in Iran as genocide and a crime against humanity.”

In this statement, issued at the initiative of the “Free Iran” caucus in the European Parliament and signed by European Parliament members from various political groups, the EU and its member states have been asked to adopt a firm policy against the Iranian government, particularly in nuclear negotiations, and to “make respect for human rights and the abolition of capital punishment a prerequisite for their relations” with the Islamic Republic.

In this statement, referring to a fatwa by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, concerning “the execution of political prisoners, particularly those affiliated with the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran,” and the subsequent massacre of thousands of political prisoners “following mock trials” lasting just minutes, it is stated that many of the most prominent international human rights lawyers have described the 1988 massacre as “a clear manifestation of crimes against humanity and genocide” and have called for “the administration of justice and the initiation of legal proceedings against those responsible.”

The statement also recalled Ibrahim Raisi, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as one of the members of the “death commission,” and referred to the detention, torture, and disappearance of thousands of people in November 2019 and during his tenure as head of the judiciary.

The statement also referenced a report by António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, on “severe violations of human rights in Iran” and accusations against the Iranian government of “destroying evidence of executions of political dissidents” in 1988 and “harassment and criminal persecution of victims’ families,” as well as the trial of Hamid Noury, one of the accused in the 1988 massacre cases.

Last September, 25 Nobel Prize laureates, in a letter to the UN Secretary-General on the occasion of the thirty-third anniversary of the 1988 executions in Iran, emphasized the necessity of establishing an international commission to conduct investigations in this regard.

In this letter, referring to a handwritten fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, stipulating the execution of “all individuals loyal to the Mujahedin-e Khalq,” whom he called “Moharebeh” (enemies of God), it is stated that based on this fatwa, “over the course of several weeks, 30,000 political prisoners were executed following two to three-minute interrogations by the so-called death commission.”

The trial of Hamid Noury, one of the accused of participating in the execution of political prisoners at Gohardasht Prison in the summer of 1988, is ongoing in Europe and has held forty-eight sessions to date.

The People’s Tribunal for November 2019, starting Wednesday, November 19, in London with the presence of a prosecution team, witnesses, and a group of human rights advocates and journalists, aims to investigate the killings and torture of people during the November 2019 protests. This symbolic tribunal examined the testimony of 45 witnesses against more than 130 officials of the Islamic Republic, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ibrahim Raisi.