Ahmad Montazeri Sentenced to 21 Years in Prison

Ahmad Montazeri has been sentenced to 21 years in prison for the publication of an audio file of Ayatollah Montazeri regarding the executions of 1988, but due to the aggregation of sentences, only six years of this sentence will be enforced. The website of Ayatollah Montazeri reported that this sentence was communicated to Ahmad Montazeri on Saturday, December 7. According to this report, Ahmad Montazeri was sentenced to 10 years in prison for 'acting against national security', 10 years for publishing a 'classified' audio file, and one year for 'propaganda against the regime'. Based on this ruling, due to the 'value and sanctity of the blood of the martyr brother' of Ahmad Montazeri, namely Mohammad Montazeri, and considering his 'age, special circumstances, and lack of a criminal record, with the average of the minimum and maximum penalties in execution', only six years of this sentence will be enforced. The Special Clerical Court also sentenced Ahmad Montazeri to be stripped of clerical status, which has been suspended for three years. According to a report published on the website of Ayatollah Montazeri, the ruling can be appealed in the Special Clerical Court within 20 days of notification. Ahmad Montazeri was accused of 'acting against national security' and was released on a bail of 70 million tomans after the publication of his father's audio file. The website of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the dismissed deputy of Ayatollah Khomeini, published an audio file on August 20, which dates back to August 15, 1988, in which this Shia authority refers to that year's executions in Iran as 'the greatest crime of the Islamic Republic'. In this audio file, Ayatollah Montazeri describes the summer executions of 1988 as 'the greatest crime of the Islamic Republic' and states that history will condemn us for this crime. Ayatollah Montazeri calls the judicial officials present in the meeting responsible for these executions and 'criminals'. The judicial officials present in this meeting were identified as Hossein Ali Niri, the Sharia judge at the time, Morteza Eshraqi, the then prosecutor of Tehran, Ebrahim Raisi, the then deputy prosecutor, and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the representative of the Ministry of Intelligence at Evin Prison at that time. The publication of this audio file faced reactions and criticism from several officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Sadegh Amoli Larijani, the head of the judiciary, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the Expediency Discernment Council, Ahmad Alamolhoda, the Friday prayer leader of Mashhad, Mohammad Mohammadi Rishahri, the former Minister of Intelligence, and Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, the Attorney General of Iran, are among those who criticized the publication of Ayatollah Montazeri's statements about the 1988 executions. Officials of the Islamic Republic have rarely spoken about the mass execution of political and ideological prisoners in the summer of 1988. Most of the executed prisoners that year were members of groups such as the People's Mujahedin of Iran, the Tudeh Party, Fedayeen, and other leftist groups who had been tried and were serving their prison sentences. The exact names and numbers of those executed in 1988, many of whom were buried anonymously in the Khavaran cemetery, are still not fully known. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights has reported the number to be at least 1,879, while Ayatollah Montazeri, emphasizing that he does not remember the exact figure, stated it to be between 2,800 and 3,800. However, groups such as the People's Mujahedin have reported the number of executions to be much higher than this.