Amnesty International publishes historic letter: Islamic Republic government officials knew about 1988 executions

Coinciding with the anniversary of the mass executions of political prisoners in Iran in 2018 , Raha Bahreini, a researcher at Amnesty International, has posted a picture of Amnesty International's historic letter to Iranian officials on Twitter, which shows that government officials were aware of the executions.

In this letter, written on August 16 , 1988 , to Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardebili, Amnesty International expressed concern about the execution of several members of the People's Mojahedin Organization, three members of the Tudeh Party, and several members of the People's Fedayeen Organization, and the imminent execution of dozens of other political prisoners.

In 2018 , by decree of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic reviewed the cases of several thousand political prisoners, many of whom had previously been tried, and sentenced many of them to death .

Islamic Republic officials refuse to provide exact figures for those executed, but Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri wrote in his memoirs that the number of those executed was between 2,800 and 3,800 . However, opponents of the Islamic Republic say that the number of those executed is much higher.

Raha Bahreini wrote in a Twitter message accompanying the release of the letter: "It was a shocking discovery and showed that government and judicial officials, as well as ambassadors of the Islamic Republic, had been aware of the executions since at least August 15 , but the policy of the Foreign Ministry of the Mousavi government was denial. And today, at the height of immorality, they say they did not know."

The letter, which was sent to the office of the then head of the judiciary and the Minister of Justice of Iran, shows that government officials, including then President Ali Khamenei and Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, were aware of the widespread executions of political prisoners.

Ali Khamenei, who is now the leader of the Islamic Republic, in recent years appointed Ebrahim Raisi, one of the figures on the judicial committee of these executions, known as the Death Committee, as the head of the judiciary.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest since 2010 , had also previously said that he had no knowledge of these executions. He had also said elsewhere that after the executions began, he had heard about the executions from Mr. Khamenei at a summit meeting, but that his duty was to defend the system. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the then speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, had also spoken in defense of the executions.

Ms. Bahreini further wrote in her Twitter messages about the reactions of a number of ambassadors and diplomats of the Islamic Republic at the time to the executions, which shows that officials at the Foreign Ministry were also aware of the widespread executions.

The only opposition among Islamic Republic officials was expressed by Ayatollah Montazeri, the then deputy leader of the Islamic Republic, who, in a meeting with members of the executions judicial committee, told them that history would remember them as the "greatest criminals."

Four years ago, the official website of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri published an audio file of his speech about the execution of political prisoners in 1988 , in which Mr. Montazeri protested against these executions.

He made these remarks on August 14, 1988, in front of a judicial panel including Morteza Eshraqi (prosecutor), Hossein Ali Nayiri (Shariah judge), Ebrahim Raisi (deputy prosecutor), and Mostafa Pourmohammadi (intelligence representative in Evin) and called for a halt to the executions. Ayatollah Montazeri was dismissed from his position as deputy leader by Ayatollah Khomeini in April of the following year.

Two years ago, Amnesty International published a report titled "The Blood-soaked Secrets of the 67 Murders and Crimes Against Humanity That Continue," referring to the concealment of the burial sites of thousands of political prisoners executed by the republic, and called on the United Nations to prepare an independent investigation into the extrajudicial killings and mass disappearances of opponents that have gone unpunished for three decades.

Source: Voice of America