“Khavaran Justice Seekers” Call for Accountability of Perpetrators and Commanders of 1988 Executions

The “Khavaran Justice Seekers” group has issued a call urging media outlets to hold a “media trial” and hold accountable the perpetrators and commanders of the massacre of political prisoners in the summer of 1367 (1988) at both domestic and international levels.

Khavaran Justice Seekers stated: “The government’s position regarding the national catastrophe of the massacre of political prisoners and its cover-up of such a heinous crime, including keeping families in complete ignorance of the fate of their imprisoned loved ones for several months, preventing any memorial services, complete denial, destroying evidence of the crime, justifying the crime, arresting and harassing families, depriving many families of citizenship rights, and recently bringing new baseless and unfounded charges, through which they are trying to erase the problem entirely.”

The mass execution of prisoners in 1367 (1988) was carried out on the orders of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, a Shiite authority, described these executions as “the greatest crime in the history of the Islamic Republic.”

Khavaran Justice Seekers stated that “the Iranian Islamic Republic government this time imposed [Ebrahim] Raisi, who was an effective member of the death committee in the massacre of political prisoners in the summer of 1367, on the Iranian people and brought him to the presidency.”

Ebrahim Raisi, the newly elected president of Iran in recent elections, is one of the primary accused in this massacre and, along with Hosseinalei Niri (the religious judge at the time), Morteza Eshraqi (the prosecutor at the time), and Mostafa Pourmohammadi (the representative of the Ministry of Intelligence at Evin Prison), was a member of the death committee for the 1367 (1988) executions.

At that time, Ebrahim Raisi was the deputy prosecutor of Tehran and a member of the committee that was entrusted with making decisions about executing prisoners.

Referring to Mr. Raisi’s position on the 1367 executions, Khavaran Justice Seekers wrote that since “the Islamic Republic government has never considered itself obligated to respond to the families of victims of the national catastrophe of the massacre of political prisoners, we request from all media outlets to hold a ‘media trial’ and allow families to respond to Raisi’s false statements to enlighten public opinion and prevent the distortion of history and the spread of lies by the commanders and perpetrators of crimes against humanity, providing families with the opportunity and means to respond.”

On Monday, 31 Khordad, in Ibrahim Raisi’s first press conference as the newly elected president in the 1400 elections, a reporter from the English-language section of Al Jazeera network referred to his role in the execution of thousands of prisoners in Iran in the summer of 1367 and asked him how this “could affect how you interact with other countries and whether you intend to travel to the West?”

Ebrahim Raisi defended those executions and said that as a judge he should be “commended” and should be “encouraged” in this regard.

He also claimed that human rights had been the “most central” issue that he has always considered since the beginning of his judicial responsibilities.

The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Iran has called for an independent investigation into the execution of thousands of political prisoners by order of Islamic Republic officials in 1367 (1988) and Ebrahim Raisi’s role in this mass killing.

Ebrahim Raisi has been sanctioned by the United States due to his background.

Source: Radio Farda