Amnesty International says Iranian regime’s refusal to acknowledge the 1988 prison massacres has led to decades of crimes and cover-ups to suppress any form of political opposition.
In a statement on Monday the international bodysaid the diplomatic representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran played a very crucial role in denying the massacres by spreading misinformation and opposing an international investigation.
“Over four decades later, current Iranian officials employ similar strategies to cover up and weaken international responses to crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations as they try to crush ongoing nationwide protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in September 2022,” adds the statement.
“The authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran have maintained an iron grip on power for decades through the commission of horror after horror with absolute impunity. They continue to systematically conceal the fate and whereabouts of thousands of political dissidents they extrajudicially killed in the 1980s and dumped in unmarked graves. They hide or destroy mass gravesites, and harass and intimidate survivors and relatives seeking truth, justice and reparation,” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director.
“Such crimes are not relics of the past. The anniversary arrives amid a horrific wave of bloodshed around the latest protests, as well as arbitrary executions and death sentences targeting protesters. This highlights the need for urgent global action… to bring those involved to justice,” she added.
A statement released by “relatives of the victims of Iran's 1988 prison massacres, members of the Iranian-American community, Oberlin College students and alumni, and concerned citizens of Ohio” on February 6 demanded that Mr. Mohammad Jafar Mahallati be removed from his post immediately for his role as an accomplice in the 1988 prison massacre.
Mahallati, a former ambassador to the United Nations and current professor of religion at Oberlin College, maintains that he was unaware of the executions despite Amnesty International’s numerous urgent notices to Iran calling for an end to the killings which were widely reported by the media. Protests were held at the time and even an Iranian, Mehradad Imen resorted to self-immolation outside the UN headquarters in September 1988 to draw attention to the wave of executions.
“I was in New York the entire summer of 1988, focusing on peace-making between Iran and Iraq, and I did not receive any briefing regarding executions,” Mahallati wrote in a statement to Oberlin Review in October 2021.
Amnesty International in a new report has named Mahallati as one of the key officials involved in covering up the killings and said that as ambassador, he repeatedly dismissed detailed reports about mass executions in 1988 and 1989, described them as “false claims and fake evidence by terrorist groups”, mispresented the executions as “battlefield killings”, and submitted films and other documents to the UN to support the false claims on behalf of the Iranian government.
The executions were carried out based on a fatwa by Iran's then-supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, against the MEK which carried out a wave of bombings in Iran and struck an alliance with Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 war. “Showing mercy to those who take up arms against the Islamic government is being naïve,” Khomeini said in his fatwa.
Most of victims were linked to the MEK but there were also others with links to leftist and secular groups such as Fadaiyan Khalq Organization (FKO) and Tudeh Party as well as some Kurdish groups, such as Komala and Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran.
The exact number of prisoners executed during the purge of prisoners is not known but according to Amnesty International, the Iranian authorities "forcibly disappeared" and "extrajudicially executed" around 5,000 between July and September 1988.
The group of relatives started a campaign in 2020 against Mahallati and since then have three times held rallies at Oberlin College and protests in San Francisco, Los Angles, London, Berlin to pressure Oberlin College to terminate Mahallati's employment.
“Given his position as ambassador, media reports, and Amnesty’s campaign, it is impossible that Mahallati was unaware of these events unless he lived in a cave, which would otherwise demonstrate gross negligence of his duty as an ambassador,” the statement said.
The group has also accused Mahallati of making anti-Semitic and anti-Baha’i. comments in the 1980s.
“We also condemn the college for continually defending a known human rights abuser and failing to meet with the victims' families, look at their evidence and listen to their stories,” the statement said.
Oberlin college initiated its own process in 2021 to determine the validity of accusations against Mahallati including allegations of antisemitism. The college said it “could find no evidence to corroborate the allegations against Professor Mahallati, including that he had specific knowledge of the murders taking place in Iran” and allowed Mahallati to continue teaching.
Iran Human Rights group in a tweet immediately on Sunday announced that the amnesty claim is a “deceitful” step by Khamenei, demanding that all protesters should be freed “unconditionally”, and instead those responsible for repression should be tried in courts.
Protesters were exercising their right to peacefully demonstrate and arresting them had no legal bases, Iran Human Rights said.
Government media reported Sunday that Khamenei had “agreed” with a proposal by the country’s Judiciary to free those who were “misled” and took part in protests.
It is still not clear how many or which prisoners will be pardoned and whose sentences will be reduced. While thousands of young and teenage protesters were arrested in street demonstrations, hundreds of political activists, journalists and writers or artists have also been detained.
Khamenei’s move came days before the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Republic, as a move to rescue the regime’s image amid a grim economic crisis and mass public rejection of the political system he presides over.
The hardliner judiciary has attached so many pre-conditions for any prisoner pardon, that no one knows how many will be freed, while some state media claimed “tens of thousands” will be released.
Some of the conditions for being pardoned were mentioned in the announcement, including no record of spying for a foreign country, no connection with foreign intelligence services, not facing a charge of murder and no accusation of destroying public property. The regime’s security forces and courts, meanwhile, have held thousands of detainees exactly based on these sorts of charges.
A lawyer defending several detained protesters tweeted that Khamenei’s move was nothing more than “imposing the fake version of reality by the regime,” which attempts to switch the guilt from itself to the victims.
Almost all court proceedings have been held behind closed doors, after many detainees were tortured to confess to trumped-up charges. Also, in most cases defendants were not allowed to have their lawyers in the court or even have access to case files.
A former political prisoner Hossein Qashqai tweeted, “It is us who should issue pardons, not you, who carry the blood of our dearest and best children on your hands. We will never forget and forgive.”
Prison interrogators often demand that detainees to sign self-incriminating apologies and pledge not to engage in antigovernment activities. Shahriar Shams, a former prisoner, quoted one his friends who is still behind bars that if the authorities free them unconditionally, it would be fine, but if they demand any letter of remorse “we will not give them anything. We should be the ones to pardon them.”
A Dutch member of the European Parliament tweeted Monday that “Freedom shouldn’t depend on a dictator’s whims. This is hypocrisy and we won’t be fooled.”
European countries have exhibited tough reactions, compared to the past, to Islamic Republic’s bloody suppression and the hanging of four protesters after sham trials. The European Parliament last month passed a resolution demanding Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to be listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union.
Some Iranian conservative supporters of Khamenei have been surprised by the international backlash and admit that the regime is now more isolated. But Khamenei seems to be determined to make no real concession. In one of his recent speeches he said, “In the old days when wounds did not heal, they cauterized them.”
