Blood-Stained Secrets; The 67 Massacre as a Continuing Crime Against Humanity

On Tuesday, December 4, Amnesty International published a 200-page report containing documents and evidence regarding the executions of 1988, calling for comprehensive and independent investigations by the United Nations into the dimensions of these executions. This human rights organization states that the 1988 executions constitute a "crime against humanity" because, according to Amnesty International, these executions were carried out by a fatwa from Ruhollah Khomeini, the then-leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and were done "arbitrarily, without following due process of fair and legal trial." The report titled "Blood-Stained Secrets; The 67 Massacre as a Continuing Crime Against Humanity" contains documents, some of which are published for the first time, revealing facts that this human rights organization describes as "crimes against humanity." Monireh Baradaran, a political prisoner from the 1980s, recounts the conditions of those years in prisons: "They completely cut off our communication with the outside world. When the massacre began, of course, we did not know what they were doing; we only saw that visits to all prisons were cut off, we no longer had newspapers, we had one television that they took from the ward, and they didn't even take sick people to the infirmary. That infirmary was inside the prison, not outside. We were just in that ward and went outside during exercise time. And families were the same. Families, which we later found out about, were also very worried without any explanation as to why, for example, visits were cut off. Naturally. After the massacre was over, from late October, they started allowing visits again, and at that time, when families inquired, they saw some people were missing from visits, and then they were told to go to a certain committee, where they were informed that your prisoner has been executed, here are their belongings, and go. And they emphasized that they were not allowed to hold memorial services, and they did not inform them of the burial place, and to this day, it remains unclear to families when the prisoners were executed and why; all of this remains unclear." Raha Bahreini, an Iran researcher at Amnesty International, described the 1988 executions as "extrajudicial" and stated that, in addition, the officials of the Islamic Republic at the time committed "enforced disappearance" as well. This practice, according to this human rights organization, continues in Iran to this day. Raha Bahreini stated, "Survivors told us that when they appeared before the death commission, many times they did not even know that their answers would determine the difference between life and death. Prisoners were asked whether they were willing to express remorse for their political beliefs? If the prisoners' answers were not accepted by the death commission, which was completely arbitrary, they were actually taken to the execution squad. The entire process that took place here bears no resemblance to a court. In addition to extrajudicial executions, a special point in Amnesty International's legal analysis in this report is that Iranian officials, by keeping the fate of the victims hidden—how they were executed, why they were executed, and through what process they were executed—and by concealing their burial places, have effectively committed the crime of enforced disappearance, which is a continuing crime. This means that as long as the perpetrators and instigators of the crime do not clarify the fate of the victims, they are still committing the crime of enforced disappearance. The crime of enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity." Amnesty International, in this report, accused the international community of three decades of negligence towards the victims and survivors of the 1988 executions and called for the examination of this case by the United Nations; from the status of prisoners of those years to the execution of thousands of political opponents and dissidents. The organization states that concealing the fate of thousands of political opponents killed during the 1988 executions by officials of the Islamic Republic is "a continuing crime against humanity." The cases that Amnesty International considers as "crimes" that the Islamic Republic has tried to hide for three decades with "policies of denial and distortion of facts." Shadi Sadr, a lawyer and director of Justice for Iran, commented on this: "The 67 massacre was a large-scale massacre that was intended to be completely secretive from the beginning, and families were kept in total ignorance for months, and then received very contradictory, incorrect, and incomplete information and news. At that time, with the efforts of political exiles outside Iran, with the efforts of families who managed to convey news about the cut-off visits and the possibility of executions, and also some photos that showed mass graves in Khavaran, they managed to get them out of the country. With these efforts and also the efforts of human rights organizations, public opinion, supporters of the United Nations, and international media became sensitive to the issue and demanded explanations from Iranian officials. In response to international media or in response to the United Nations, Iranian officials at that time, from the highest-ranking officials and ambassadors of Iran in various countries, completely denied the occurrence of the massacre." Monireh Baradaran stated, "Keeping the fate of thousands of opponents of the Iranian government who disappeared 30 years ago hidden, the unknown burial places of thousands of political dissidents, and even depriving the families of the victims of holding burial and mourning ceremonies using methods such as summons, intimidation, and detention," are other issues that Amnesty International emphasized the necessity of independent investigations into. Monireh Baradaran added, "In fact, throughout the 1980s, political prisoners were deprived of the right to have lawyers. They were tortured, and the courts did not conform to any of the international human rights standards, nor did they conform to any human standards... What makes the 1980s massacre special is that these were mass executions, and those who were executed had all previously gone through trials, the same revolutionary courts, and had received prison sentences from those courts and were serving their sentences. Many of them had even completed their sentences and should have been released. During that summer, which lasted six weeks, about four thousand prisoners were executed across the country." Amnesty International's new report contains the names of some officials of the Islamic Republic who were involved in those executions, such as Alireza Avaei, the current Minister of Justice, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, advisor to the head of the judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, the presidential candidate of the 2017 elections, Hossein Ali Niri, head of the Supreme Disciplinary Court of Judges, and Mohammad Hossein Ahmadi, a member of the Assembly of Experts. Individuals whom Amnesty International refers to as the "death commission." Raha Bahreini stated that many of the officials at the time have blood on their hands: "In general, Amnesty International discusses two categories of officials in the report: one category includes those who were directly active in the death commissions during the 67 massacre and are responsible for the extrajudicial execution of thousands of political opponents across the country, and it is terrifying that after three decades, not only have none of these individuals been held accountable, but many of them are now in positions that should be responsible for addressing the injustices committed against the victims and their families. The other category of officials includes those who have consistently denied and distorted the reality of the massacre during the time of the massacre and in all the years thereafter, including the diplomatic staff of Mir Hossein Mousavi at that time, representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Geneva and New York at the United Nations, and Iranian ambassadors in various countries, whom Amnesty International met with in 67 and 68, and all of them consistently questioned the occurrence of the massacre." Shadi Sadr stated that Amnesty International's report is based on testimonies from over 100 family members of victims and survivors from those years, as well as hundreds of documented records, death certificates, and reports from human rights organizations. These documents, according to this organization, should be examined in comprehensive investigations by the United Nations. Shadi Sadr hopes that this report will lay the groundwork for the establishment of a truth commission: "Legally, the UN Human Rights Council and various human rights mechanisms of this organization have the capacity to form an independent international investigative body if they receive documents and evidence indicating widespread and severe human rights violations or a major crime. Especially in cases where governments themselves fail to fulfill their duties regarding investigations into human rights violations. Regarding the 67 massacre, for over thirty years, the Iranian government has failed to fulfill its duty under international law to investigate this incident. On the other hand, this report clearly provides precise legal documents to the United Nations indicating that this massacre constitutes a crime against humanity, and since this crime against humanity is an issue that the United Nations must address, I am very optimistic that the publication of this report will be the beginning of a process that will ultimately convince the United Nations to conduct this independent investigation." The testimonies and documents published in Amnesty International's investigative report depict "a shocking picture of the dimensions of a horrific massacre" in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the 1988 executions in at least 32 cities in Iran.