1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners

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17th anniversary of the executions at Khavaran cemetery, one of the burial places used for the mass graves.
17th anniversary of the executions at Khavaran cemetery, one of the burial places used for the mass graves.

1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners (Persian: ۱۳۶۷ اعدام زندانیان سیاسی در تابستان) refers to the systematic execution of thousands of political prisoners across Iran by the government of Iran, starting on 19 July 1988 and lasting about five months. The main target was the membership of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), although a lesser number of political prisoners from other leftist groups were also included such as the Tudeh Party of Iran (Communist Party).[1][2]

The killings have been called "an act of violence unprecedented in Iranian history - unprecedented in form, content, and intensity."[3] Estimates of the number executed vary from 1,400 [4] to 30,000.[5][6]

Great care was taken to keep the killings secret, and the government of Iran denies their having taken place, but with the large scale of the operation word leaked out from survivors. Explanations offered for why the prisoners were killed vary. Perhaps the most common is that it was in retaliation for the 1988 attack on the western borders of Iran by the PMOI, although this happened after the executions had begun and does not explain the executions of members of other leftists groups who opposed the Mojahedin invasion. [7]

Contents

[edit] The executions

[edit] Khomeini's order

Shortly before the executions commenced, Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued "a secret but extraordinary order - some suspect a formal fatwa." This set up "Special Commissions with instructions to execute members of People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran as moharebs (those who war against God) and leftists as mortads (apostates from Islam)." [8]

In part the letter read:

«از آنجا که منافقین خائن به هیچ وجه به اسلام معتقد نبوده و هر چه میگویند از روی حیله و نفاق آنهاست و به اقرار سران آنها از اسلام ارتداد پیدا کردهاند، با توجه به محارب بودن آنها و جنگ کلاسیک آنها در شمال و غرب و جنوب کشور با همکاریهای حزب بعث عراق و نیز جاسوسی آنها برای صدام علیه ملت مسلمان ما و با توجه به ارتباط آنان با استکبار جهانی و ضربات ناجوانمردانهٔ آنان از ابتدای تشکیل نظام جمهوری اسلامی تا کنون، کسانی که در زندانهای سراسر کشور بر سر موضع نفاق خود پافشاری کرده و میکنند، محارب و محکوم به اعدام میباشند.» (رضایی و سلیمی نمین، پاسداشت حقیقت:147)
[9]

Translation:

"Since:

  1. PMOI members do not believe in Islam, while pretending otherwise.
  2. Due to their systematic military war in the northern, western and southern Iranian borders ...
  3. Due to their cooperation with Saddam Hussein in war against Iran ...
  4. Due to spying against Iran ...
  5. Due to their connections with Western powers ([acting against Iran's independence]) ...
all those jailed PMOI members who continue supporting PMOI and its positions are considered militant enemies and need to be executed."

[edit] Administering of the executions

In Tehran the special commission for the executions had 16 members representing the various authorities of the Islamic government - Imam Khomeini himself, the president, the chief prosecutor, the Revolutionary Tribunals, the Ministries of Justice and Intelligence, and the administration of Evin and Gohar Dasht, the two prisons in the Tehran area from which the prisoner were eliminated. The chair of the commission was Ayatollah Eshraqi. His two special assistants were Hojatt al-Islam Nayeri and Hojjat al-Islam Mobasheri. The commission shuttled back and forth between Evan and Gohar Dasht prisons by helicopter. In the provinces similar commissions were established, but less is known about them. [10]

The prisoners were not executed without any proceedings, but were "tried" on charges totally unrelated to the charges that had landed them in prison. They were interviewed by commissions with a set list of questions to see if they qualified as moharebs or mortads to the satisfaction of that commission. Many, if not most, of the prisoners were unaware of the true purpose of the questions, although later some were warned by the prison grapevine.

[edit] Isolation of the prisoners

The execution process began in the early hours of 19 July 1988 with the isolation of the political prisoners from the outside world. Prison gates were closed, scheduled visits and telephone calls were canceled, letters, care packages, and even vital medicines from the outside were turned away, the main law courts went on an unscheduled vacation. Even relatives of prisoners were forbidden to congregate outside the prison gates.

Inside the prison cell blocks were isolated from each other and cleared of radios and televisions. Places where prisoners gathered communally, such as lecture halls, workshops, infirmaries, were all closed down and inmates were confined to their cells. Prison guards and workers were ordered not to speak to prisoners. One prisoner constructed a homemade wireless set to listen to the radio news from the outside but found news broadcasters were saying nothing at all about the lockdown. [11]

[edit] Dealing with the Mojahedin

The first prisoners to be interviewed or "tried" were the male Mojahedin, including those who had repented of their association with the group. The commission prefaced the proceedings with the false assurance that this was not a trial but a process for initiating a general amnesty and separating the Muslims from the non-Muslims. It first asked their organizational affiliation. If they replied `Mojahedin`, the questioning ended there. If they replied `monafeqin` (hypocrites), the commission continued with such questions

  • `Are you willing to denounce former colleagues?`
  • `Are you willing to denounce them before the cameras?`
  • `Are you willing to help us hunt them down?`
  • `Will you name secret sympathizers?`
  • `Will you identify phony repenters?`
  • `Will you go to the war front and walk through enemy minefields?`

Not surprisingly almost all the prisoners failed to answer in the affirmative to all the questions. These were then taken to another room and ordered to write their last will and testament and to discard any personal belongings such as rings, watches, and spectacles. They were then blindfolded and taken to the gallows where they were hanged in batches of six. Since "hanging" did not mean death by breaking of the neck by drop through a trap door, but stringing up the victim by the neck to suffocate, "some took fifteen minutes to die. After the first few days, the overworked executioners requested firing squads. These requests, however were rejected on the claim that the sharia mandated hanging for apostates and enemies of God." Although it is thought that the real reason may have been that the hanging was quieter than gunfire and would better preserve the secrecy of the operation.

At first this secrecy was effective. "One survivor admits that he thought he was being processed to be released in time for the forthcoming peace celebrations." [12]

[edit] Dealing with leftists

After August 27, the commission turned its attention to the leftist prisoners - members of the Tudeh, Majority Fedayi, Minority Fedayi, other Fedayi, Kumaleh, Rah-e Kargar, Peykar, etc. These were also assured they were in no danger and asked:

  • `Are you a Muslim?`
  • `Do you believe in God?`
  • `Is the Holy Koran the World of God?`
  • `Do you believe in Heaven and Hell?`
  • `Do you accept the Holy Muhammad to be the Seal of the Prophets?`
  • `Will you publicly recant historical materialism?`
  • `Will you denounce your former beliefs before the cameras?`
  • `Do you fast during Ramadan?`
  • `Do you pray and read the Holy Koran?`
  • `Would you rather share a cell with a Muslim or a non-Muslim?`
  • `Will you sign an affidavit that you believe in God, the Prophet, the Holy Koran, and the Resurrection?`
  • `When you were growing up did your father pray, fast, and read the Holy Koran?`

Prisoners were told that authorities were asking them these questions because they planned to separate practicing Muslims from non-practicing ones. However, the real reason was to determine whether the prisoners qualified as apostates from Islam, in which case they would join the moharebs in the gallows.

Some prisoners saved from execution by answering the questions properly returned to his cell and passed along what the commission was asking. A leftist prisoner "who had at one time attended a seminary quickly grasped the theological significance of the questions" and "spent the night of August 30 sending morse code messages to other cells" by knocking on the prison walls. He pointed "out the hidden dangers." The questioners wanted to know why prisoners' fathers prayed, fasted, and read the Holy Koran because the sons of those fathers who had not could not be called apostates. If they had not been raised in proper Muslim homes first and "exposed to true Islam," they could not be apostates. Another wrong answer was refusing to answer "on the grounds of `privacy,`" which "could itself be taken as an admission of `apostasy.`"[13]

All this was a surprise to the prisoners, one commenting, `In previous years, they wanted us to confess to spying. In 1988, they wanted us to convert to Islam.` [14] It also meant there was no correlation between the length of sentence being served and the likelihood of death. "The first leftist to go before the Evin commission were those with light, and even completed, sentences." These had no warning of what was in store and many died.

[edit] Dealing with women

Mojahedin women were given equal treatment with Mojahedin men, almost all hanged as `armed enemies of God.` However, for apostasy the punishment for women was different and lighter than that for men. Since according to the commission's interpretation of Islamic law, women were not fully responsible for their actions, "disobedient women - including apostates - could be given discretionary punishments to mend their ways and obey male superiors." Leftist women - even those raised as practicing Muslims - were given another `opportunity` to reconsider their `apostasy.` "After the investigation, leftist women were all given five lashes for every prayer missed [25 a day], half that meted out to the men. After a while, many agreed to pray. Some went on hunger strike - refusing even water. One died after 22 days and 550 lashes. The authorities certified her death as suicide - after all, it was `she who had made the decision not to pray.`" [15]

[edit] Families

According to Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, executed prisoner's families were told: `For one year you shall refrain from holding a funeral, or mourning his death in any public way. If after one year your conduct is deemed acceptable, we will reveal to you his place of burial.` The justification given to these families for the execution of their loved ones was that the prisoner's name had appeared on notes pinned to PMOI members killed in the Mersad attack whose bodies had been recovered by Iranian Islamic officials. The notes listing the PMOI's supporters' in prison so the prisoners had been guilty of aiding the attack. Ebadi complained that aside from being improbable, this did not explain why the prisoners had not received a trial for the charge of giving support to the enemy. [16]

[edit] Estimates of fatalities

One anonymous ex-prisoner places the death toll in the `thousands.` Another eyewitness puts in between 5000 and 6000 - 1000 from the left and the rest from the Mojahedin. [17] Yet another estimates it in the `thousands`, with Gohar Dasht alone having as many as 1500 [18] A recent study using scattered information from the provinces places the figure at 12,000. [19] Amnesty International estimates that the national total is more than 2500 and describes the vast majority of the victims as `prisoners of conscience` as they had not been charged with actual deeds of plans of deeds against the state. [20]

It is estimated that most of the executed were either high school or college students or fresh graduates, and over 10% were women.[21]

[edit] Response

[edit] Montazeri

One of the consequences of the killings was the resignation of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri as the heir-designate to Ayatollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader of Iran. Prior to the killings, Montazeri "had taken issue with the diehard cleric on a number of subjects - the trial of Mehdi Hashemi, the anti-hoarding campaign ..." When he heard of the killings Montazeri rushed off three public letters - two to Khomeini, one to the Special Commission - denouncing the executions "in no uncertain terms." He also took the Special Commission "to task for violating Islam by executing repenters and minor offenders who in a proper court of law would have received a mere reprimand." [22]

Montazeri was asked to resign with Khomeini maintaining he had always been doubtful of Montazeri's competence and that it had `I expressed reservations when the Assembly of Experts first appointed you.`" but the Assembly of Experts, had insisted on naming Montazeri the future Supreme Leader. [23]

The regime published letters between the two Ayatollahs but "the selection dealt only with the Hashemi affair and scrupulously avoided the mass executions - thus observing the official line that these executions never took place." [24]

[edit] Other criticism

One complaint made against the mass killings was that almost all the prisoners executed had been arrested for relatively minor offenses, since those with serious charges had already been executed. The 1988 killings resembled the `disappearances` of prisoners in 20th century Latin America. One difference was that Iranian killings strongly resembled the Catholic Inquisition while in traditionally Catholic Latin America, Inquisition methods were not used. [25]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has described the executions as "deliberate and systematic ... extrajudicial killings," and has condemned them as crimes against humanity. HRW has also accused Iran's Interior Minister, Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi, of direct involvement in the killings. [26]

[edit] Motivation

Scholars disagree over why the prisoners were killed. Ali Akbar Mahdi believes the intense overcrowding of Iranian prisons and the July 1988 PMoI Operation Mersad offensive "had much to do" with the massacre.[27] Ervand Abrahamian believes the "regime's internal dynamics" were responsible - the need for "a glue" to hold "together his disparate followers" and a "bloodbath" to "purge" moderates like Montazeri and prevent any future "détente with the West" from destroying his legacy.[28]

[edit] See also

[edit] References and notes

  1. ^ Iranian party demands end to repression
  2. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Tortured Confessions, University of California Press, 1999, 209-228
  3. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Tortured Confessions, University of California Press, 1999, 210
  4. ^ Massacre 1988 (Pdf)
  5. ^ Memories of a slaughter in Iran
  6. ^ Khomeini fatwa 'led to killing of 30,000 in Iran'
  7. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Tortured Confessions, University of California Press, 1999, 218
  8. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Tortured Confessions, University of California Press, 1999, p.210
  9. ^ Pasdasht e Haghighat by Mohsen Rezaee and Abbas Salimi-Namin. Page 147. 2002
  10. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Tortured Confessions, University of California Press, 1999, p.210
  11. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Tortured Confessions, University of California Press, 1999, p.209-10
  12. ^ `Interview with Two Survivors of the Mass Killings,` Ettehad-e Kar 41 (August 1997), quoted in Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, (1999), p.212
  13. ^ Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, (1999), p.212
  14. ^ Editorial, `The Islamic Law of Repentance,` Aksariyat 18 May 1989] quoted in Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, (1999), p.212-3
  15. ^ E. Mahbaz (pseudonym, `The Islamic Republic of Iran - The Hell for women: Seven Years in Prison" (unpublished paper, 1996), quoted in Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, (1999), p.215
  16. ^ Ebadi, Shirin, Iran Awakening, by Shirin Ebadi with Azadeh Moaveni, Random House New York, 2006, p.87, 88
  17. ^ Anonymous, `I Was Witness to the Slaughter of Political Prisoners in Gohar Dasht,` Cheshmandaz, n.14 (Winter 1995): 68, quoted in Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, (1999), p.212
  18. ^ K. Homayun, `The Slaughter at Gohar Dasht`, Kar 62, (April 1992), quoted in Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, (1999), p.212
  19. ^ N. Mohajer, `The Mass Killings in Iran` Aresh 57 (August 1996): 7, quoted in Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, (1999), p.212
  20. ^ Amnesty International. Iran: Violations of Human Rights, 1987-1990 (London, 1991) 12
  21. ^ Ebadi, Shirin, Iran Awakening, by Shirin Ebadi with Azadeh Moaveni, Random House New York, 2006, p.90-1
  22. ^ Editor, `Montazeri's Letters,` Cheshmandaz, n.6 (Summer 1989), 35-37, quoted in Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, (1999), p.220
  23. ^ Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, (1999), p.220
  24. ^ Ranjnameh-e Hazrat Hojjat al-Islam va al-Muslman Aqa-ye Hajj Sayyed Ahmad Khomeini beh Hazrat Ayatollah Montazeri (Tehran, 1990), quoted in Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, (1999), p.220
  25. ^ Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, (1999), p.217
  26. ^ HRW - Pour-Mohammadi and the 1988 Prison Massacres
  27. ^ Review by Ali Akbar Mahdi of Tortured Confessions: Prison and Public Recantations in Modern Iran, in International Journal of Middle East Studies © 2000, p.417
  28. ^ Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, (1999), p.219

[edit] Further reading

  • Abrahamian Ervand. Tortured Confessions. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 1999. ISBN 0-520-21866-3
  • Afshari Reza. Human Rights in Iran. The Abuse of Cultural Relativism. 2001. ISBN 0-8122-3605-X
  • Final Report on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran by the Special Representative of the Commission on Human Rights, Mr. Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, pursuant to Commission resolution 1992/67 of 4 March 1992. Document number E/CN.4/1993/41 http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/Documents?OpenFrameset
  • Cooper, Roger. Death Plus Ten Years (Paperback). Harpercollins; New Ed edition (May 1995) ISBN 0006381030
  • Rejali, Darius. Torture and Modernity: Self, society and state in modern Iran. Westview Press 1994. ISBN 0691114226

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