Complaint by 20 Members of Parliament Against Ali Motahari

Twenty members of Parliament, following the publication of a letter from Ali Motahari addressed to Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the Minister of Justice of the Islamic Republic, regarding the massacres of 1988, have called for an investigation into Motahari's qualifications to remain in his position as Vice President of Parliament. News agencies Fars and Tasnim reported that these representatives, in their letter addressed to the Supervisory Board on the Conduct of Representatives, demanded action against Motahari. Their letter states that "Ali Motahari should not remain in the position of Vice President of the Islamic Consultative Assembly due to his recent positions and statements." Tasnim news agency also reported that the representatives demanded a change in Motahari's approach and warned that "if this does not happen, Motahari must resign from his vice presidency." According to reports, the representatives stated that "this complaint is based on violations committed by the Vice President of Parliament in this position." On Saturday (August 27), Ali Motahari, the Vice President of the Iranian Parliament, officially requested Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the Minister of Justice in Hassan Rouhani's government, to clarify the rumors "about the events of 1988." Mostafa Pourmohammadi, a member of the decision-making committee regarding the execution of political and ideological prisoners in 1988, in response to the release of an audio file of Ayatollah Montazeri, referred to the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization as "vampire enemies of Iran." Pourmohammadi, as a representative of the Ministry of Intelligence, was a member of the committee that, by the order of Ayatollah Khomeini, the then-leader of the Islamic Republic, decided on the execution of political and ideological prisoners in the summer of 1988. Following the release of the audio file of Hossein Ali Montazeri condemning these massacres, a new political uproar has arisen in Iran, and Pourmohammadi, along with a group of other clerics, has implicitly defended the executions of that year. In the released audio file, Montazeri, referring to Mr. Pourmohammadi's presence as a representative of the Ministry of Intelligence in this committee, states that the Ministry of Intelligence had "opinions and had invested" in the execution of political prisoners for years. In the entire approximately 40-minute audio file of the meeting of Ayatollah Montazeri with four members of the mentioned committee, none of the attendees reject or deny Montazeri's criticisms after hearing them. This is a point that Ali Motahari also implicitly referred to in his official letter and asked Mostafa Pourmohammadi to take a clear stance on this issue. The publication of Ali Motahari's letter also led to tensions in the public session of Parliament on Sunday, where Mohsen Kouhkan, one of the members of Parliament, asked him to refrain from some "marginal" comments while he is in the position of Vice President of Parliament. Motahari responded to this criticism by saying that in his letter he asked Pourmohammadi to clarify if there was any "shortcoming" in the implementation of Ayatollah Khomeini's order regarding the executions of 1988. He also added that "the issue of vice presidency has nothing to do with us not speaking the truth. There may be considerations during the session, but every representative is free to express their opinion." The news site "Khabar Online" also reported that while Motahari was speaking, loud voices were heard from within the chamber, one saying "Death to the hypocrite" and another shouting at Motahari: "This will be your last time." The uproar over the release of Hossein Ali Montazeri's audio file has not been limited to the public session of Parliament and has also reached the Assembly of Experts. The Assembly of Experts issued a statement on Sunday defending the mass execution of political and ideological prisoners in 1988, praising what it called "the historic and revolutionary decision of Imam Khomeini in dealing seriously and uncompromisingly with the hypocrites and the fair trial of the leaders and some members of the hypocrite group." In recent days, many senior officials, both past and present, of the Islamic Republic have explicitly or implicitly defended the executions of 1988. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the Expediency Discernment Council who was the Speaker of Parliament at the time of the executions, Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri, the then Minister of Intelligence, Majid Ansari, the legal deputy of the President who was the head of the Prisons Organization in the summer of 1988, Gholamhossein Daei Najafabadi, former Minister of Intelligence, Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, and Sadegh Amoli Larijani, the head of the judiciary, were among these individuals and officials. However, Ali Motahari, the Vice President of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, has called for an explanation and "apology" from those who ordered these executions.