Defense of the 1988 Executions Continues in Response to Montazeri's Audio File

In response to the audio file of Ayatollah Montazeri regarding the execution of political and ideological prisoners in 1988, several close associates of Ayatollah Khomeini, including Ali Khomeini, his grandson, Mohsen Rezaei, and Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi, have protested this action. According to a report by the daily newspaper Jomhouri Eslami on Saturday, August 13, Ali Khomeini spoke in defense of the 1988 executions following the release of Montazeri's audio file. While he did not directly reference this audio file, his statements echoed previous remarks defending the mass executions of political and ideological prisoners in 1988. Ali Khomeini described the events of 1988 as the 'result of the management' of Ayatollah Khomeini and questioned, 'Why do the opponents of the regime turn a blind eye to the countless crimes of the hypocrites and only consider the execution of some of them a crime?' He added, 'It is unfair to accuse the regime of being harsh with the hypocrites.' He emphasized, 'Today, some have become concerned and ask why you are dealing with these people, why you dealt with the hypocrites, why you dealt with the unveiled, why you dealt with the fools. What should the regime have done with them? It had to fight; it had to act firmly. Thank God it did, and the country saw peace.' On the night of Tuesday, June 1, he also defended the execution of members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization in the 1980s, accusing the group of assassinating 'the greats of the country' and stating that if the former leader of the Islamic Republic had shown leniency in the face of these crimes, the country would not have seen peace. Last Thursday, Mohammad Ali Ansari, a member of Ayatollah Khomeini's office, described the audio file of Ayatollah Montazeri's remarks about the 1988 executions as 'full of errors and distortions' and 'unfair,' which had been 'implanted' in him by 'malicious associates.' Mohammad Mousavi Bejnordi, a member of the Supreme Judicial Council during Ayatollah Khomeini's time and father-in-law of Hassan Khomeini, also stated on Friday that the remarks made by Ayatollah Montazeri were due to what he called 'misleading information' that had been 'maliciously' conveyed to him. Meanwhile, Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi, the Attorney General during the early years of Ayatollah Khomeini's leadership, deemed the release of this audio file 'harmful to the country' and added that its publication had led to 'exploitation by the enemies of the revolution and the regime.' According to the Tabnak website, he accused the executed prisoners during the mass executions of 1988 of intending to 'revolt' in prisons simultaneously with the operations of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization that year and the entry of this group's forces into Iran. In the released audio file, Ayatollah Montazeri refers to the role of Ahmad Khomeini and the Ministry of Intelligence in planning these executions years in advance, stating that Ahmad Khomeini had been saying years before these executions that all members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, even those who read the organization's publications, should be executed. However, Mohsen Rezaei, the Secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council of Iran, defended Ahmad Khomeini on his Instagram page, stating that he 'tried several times to keep Ayatollah Montazeri from confronting the Imam.' Meanwhile, Ahmad Alamolhoda, representative of Ayatollah Khamenei in Khorasan Razavi, described the release of Ayatollah Montazeri's audio file as 'brazen' and called for decisive action against Ahmad Montazeri. In recent days, some media outlets close to the principlists have linked the release of Mr. Montazeri's audio file to the holding of a Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization conference in Paris and the presence of Turki al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence, at this conference, considering it evidence of 'planning' for this action. Ramadan Sharif, the public relations officer of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, stated on Saturday in a speech, without directly referencing Ayatollah Montazeri's audio file, that 'the recent suspicious attempts to portray the legacy of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization are doomed to failure and disgrace.' Officials of the Islamic Republic have previously 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 Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, the Tudeh Party, the Fadaiyan, and other leftist groups that had been tried and were serving their prison sentences. According to Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini personally ordered the execution of 'those who insisted on their stance of hypocrisy in prisons across the country.' Many of those executed were buried anonymously in mass graves in the Khavaran cemetery. The exact names and numbers of those executed that year are still not fully known. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights has reported that at least 1,879 political prisoners were executed. However, Ayatollah Montazeri, in his memoirs, stated that this number was between 2,800 and 3,800, emphasizing that he does not remember the exact figure. The officials of the Islamic Republic have accused the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization of assassinating several high-ranking officials of the Islamic Republic and military and security forces. Among these, the bombing of the Islamic Republic Party office on July 7, 1981, and the bombing of the Prime Minister's office on September 8 of the same year have been attributed to the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization, but conflicting reports have been published regarding this group's role in these bombings.