Amnesty International Warns About the Situation of Those Pursuing Justice for the 1988 Mass Executions

The human rights organization Amnesty International states that Iranian authorities are "retaliating" against "Maryam Akbari Monfared" for her pursuit of justice regarding the 1988 massacre. In a statement released on Monday, May 22, it was mentioned that on May 12, Hassan Jafari, the husband of Maryam Akbari Monfared, was summoned, and "intelligence agents insulted him and threatened that his wife would face three more years in prison and exile to a prison in Sistan and Baluchestan." Mr. Jafari told Amnesty International that agents at the Ministry of Intelligence warned him that these threats would be executed unless Maryam Akbari Monfared stopped her correspondence and informing about the fate and burial places of several thousand prisoners, including her brother and sister, who were extrajudicially executed in 1988. Maryam Akbari Monfared was arrested two days after the Ashura protests in 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Tehran Revolutionary Court on charges of moharebeh (waging war against God), acting against national security, and propaganda against the regime. In October 2016, after the release of an audio file of Ayatollah Montazeri, the then-deputy leader, regarding the mass execution of prisoners in 1988, she filed a complaint with the Tehran prosecutor's office, demanding an investigation into the reasons for the execution of her four siblings in the 1980s. According to the Justice for Iran organization, in February 2017, Ms. Akbari Monfared filed a complaint with the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances regarding the execution of her brother and sister in 1988, asking the organization to question Iranian officials about the cases of Abdolreza and Roghayeh Akbari Monfared. She has also pursued several letters for official investigations into the 1988 massacre, the disclosure of mass graves where prisoners are buried, and the identification of the perpetrators and those responsible. According to Amnesty International's statement, Maryam Akbari Monfared's siblings, Roghayeh and Abdolreza, were among several thousand political prisoners whose communication with the outside world was cut off in July 1988, after which they were secretly executed without trial. This is the second time in recent months that human rights organizations have warned about the violation of rights and intimidation of truth-seekers regarding the executions of the 1980s. Last December, Amnesty International and 19 other organizations issued a joint statement calling on Iranian authorities to cease the violation of rights and intimidation of truth-seekers regarding the executions of the 1980s. The statement said: "Iranian officials must end the harassment, intimidation, and prosecution of human rights defenders who are seeking truth and justice for those who have been arbitrarily executed or disappeared." These defending and observing organizations further mentioned the names of Mansoureh Bakish, Maryam Akbari Monfared, and Raheleh Rahimipour, as well as Ahmad Montazeri, individuals who, according to them, are peacefully seeking information about their loved ones or have published information in this regard. It is said that in the 1988 executions, more than four thousand political prisoners, most of whom were serving their sentences or had completed them, were executed within two months. In this context, Amnesty International states that Maryam Akbari Monfared, a political prisoner, has been deprived of medical services. Human rights defenders: officials must end the intimidation of truth-seekers regarding the executions of the 1980s.