Families of the Executed in 67 Also Became Victims

Summer of 1988 and the execution of several thousand political prisoners; an event you may have heard about. Thousands of political prisoners in Iran were executed in groups over a few months simply because they refused to abandon their beliefs and convictions. The number of these prisoners is reported to be at least 5,000. However, the victims of these executions were not just those few thousand political prisoners; the families of these victims were also victimized in various ways. In early August 1988, several families in Tehran and Karaj learned that their children and relatives, who were political prisoners serving their sentences, had been executed. Since these executions were carried out secretly, the victims were buried in a cemetery in Tehran called Khavaran. The wave of mass executions of prisoners was not limited to Tehran and the capital; it had also spread to several other cities in Iran. After that, on the morning of August 7, 1988, some relatives of the executed prisoners secretly went to the Khavaran cemetery, and after digging in some corners of this abandoned cemetery for a couple of hours, they found several bodies buried together in clothing. One of these individuals immediately captured pieces of the truth about the mass executions with a camera, and this document was published a few months later outside Iran at an appropriate opportunity. These few frames of photos of the buried in Khavaran remain the only visual evidence of the existence of a mass grave in Khavaran to this day. After this, more families of the victims of the summer 1988 mass executions were banned from holding ceremonies for their loved ones, and many of them were summoned and interrogated. Furthermore, the close relatives of the deceased were unable to continue their education in certain fields or choose any job they wanted. On the occasion of the anniversary of the mass executions of summer 1988, I spoke with Maryam Hosseinkhah, a researcher at the human rights organization Justice for Iran. Over the past two years, Justice for Iran has been gathering and compiling the narratives and testimonies of some families of the victims of the summer 1988 mass executions and, in general, the executions of the 1980s. I asked Maryam Hosseinkhah what the aim of Justice for Iran's research on the executions of the 1980s, particularly summer 1988, has been and what topics they have pursued. Maryam Hosseinkhah: The focus has been on what happened to the families of the executed from the day the executions began and what rights were violated. When they tried to learn the truth about their children's executions and sought access to justice, what kinds of harassment and abuse did they face? As we progressed with our research and simultaneously gathered testimonies from families, we realized that many of the executed in the 1980s could be classified as enforced disappearances. According to international law, enforced disappearance refers to individuals who are arbitrarily detained and tortured. Then, regarding their whereabouts and fate, whether during detention or after execution, there is secrecy and concealment, thus removing them from legal protection. Many of the executed in the 1980s fall under this definition, and the importance of this issue is that one cannot say this was an event from over thirty years ago and is now over. No. Until it is clarified how and why these individuals were executed and until the location of their bodies is revealed, and until the thousands of other questions related to this matter are answered, the government is obliged to be accountable to the families, and the families have the right to continue this demand. On the other hand, there is also an international mechanism for this. The United Nations has a committee called the Committee on Enforced Disappearances, which can investigate cases regardless of when these events occurred, and families can register their child's details and demand accountability from the Islamic Republic. We are ready to cooperate in this regard. The executions you examined, based on the evidence and documents available, only pertain to those famous three months of summer 1988? What we did was examine the entire 1980s, and many of the families we spoke with had loved ones executed in the early years of the 1980s and before 1988. There were also families where one member was executed in 1988, but another was executed in 1980. We thought we should investigate this trend. It is true that in 1988 there was a large massacre that occurred in a short time, and many of them did not have death sentences, and the government did not take responsibility for it and denied it, but many horrifying events also occurred throughout the 1980s. Many of those executed were tortured and arbitrarily detained. In relation to leftist prisoners, on whom we focused, in the vast majority of cases, the prisoners who were executed were buried by prison officials without their families being allowed a final farewell before the execution or even a final farewell with their loved ones' bodies. They were taken, buried, and families were told their child had been executed, and sometimes they were told where they were buried, and sometimes not even that, leading families to wander for months and sometimes years trying to find the approximate location of their child's burial. Sometimes they were given a location, and when families went to exhume, they found that the grave was incorrectly identified or belonged to someone else. All these instances can be labeled as torture of families that occurred throughout the 1980s. However, in 1988, this was the most severe and occurred in a shorter time frame. Do these families, the survivors of that event, many of whom live in Iran, still face problems due to their kinship with the victims of 1988? One important point in the report is that the pain and suffering of the families has not ended. There are two aspects to this. One aspect is that families still do not know what happened during those years, and one of the rights that has been violated all these years is the right to know the truth and the right to have justice served. One of the things families want and have wanted all these years is for the perpetrators and instigators of these executions to be identified, to be fairly tried, and to be held accountable. We see that families have tried every year to go to Khavaran and other cemeteries, or by writing, interviewing, and recounting their memories and what has happened to them, they have continuously made efforts to keep this quest for justice alive, and it is clear that this suffering has not ended, and until the truth is revealed and justice is served, it will not end. On the other hand, many of these families who pursued justice have faced harassment and abuse from the government. They were threatened, interrogated, and sometimes arrested. Sometimes they were even issued sentences. This was because they wanted them to be silent, not to go to Khavaran, and to forget this matter. This issue continues to this day. From the very first days, they faced difficulties in holding mourning ceremonies. They were made to commit that they could not hold any mourning ceremonies or go to the graves of their children. However, families usually did not listen and went, and of course, they faced harassment. Throughout all this time, many families were deprived of their civil rights because their relatives had been executed or because they themselves pursued justice for their executed relatives; they were dismissed from their jobs, demoted, or could not be employed in any government position. Even in years when there was no strict selection for jobs such as piloting, which is more sensitive, they were not allowed to enter just because their relatives had been executed.