Written by Jazeh Miller Published: 29 July 2017
Iranian regime massacred
over 30,000 political prisoners in summer of 1988, and kept silent about this
atrocity for three decades. Most of the victims were members and supports of
the main opposition group
the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). This year in the
presidential election as conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisie, one of the
perpetrators of the massacre, was selected as one of the main candidates, the
issue surfaced, forcing regime officials, one after another, to confess about the carnage.
Last week in an
unprecedented interview, Ali Fallahian, the former Iranian intelligence
Minister, revealed the mindset behind the mass execution of summer of 1988. Ali
Fallahian, who was called as “the most feared mullah in Iran” by the News Week is wanted by
Interpol for his involvement in the AMIA bombing that killed 85 people on July
18, 1994 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In the interview, Fallahian
explained that whoever had any relation with the MEK was condemned to death.
"Regarding MEK and all the
militant groups, the ruling is the death sentence ... Imam (Khomeini) has said
this ... their verdict is death sentence ... Fallahian said in the interview.
“Mr. Mousavi (Tabrizi) who
was the Revolution’s general prosecutor used to say that there is no need for
trial at all ... it makes no sense that we try them ... Imam repeatedly
insisted that you should be careful not to let them go... Imam continuously stressed that you should
always be cautious of this matter ... Their ruling is always execution. This
was his (Khomeini’s) verdict as the supreme leader, both before and after this
event of 1988 (massacre of political prisoners).” Fallahian said in the interview referring to MEK
members and supporters.
"
First, you should bear in mind that their (MEK’s) ruling was death
punishment; and if the religious judge did not sentence them (MEK) to death,
his ruling has been illegal ... so all of us should acknowledge that the verdict for a
Monafeq [the term used by the regime to call a MEK member or sympathizer] is
death sentence, this was both Imam’s fatwa and his verdict... there was a
discussion about those who were supposed to be executed, but the executions did
not carry out, and
those who were to be executed but didn’t get a verdict. ‘Nonetheless’ why they
were kept alive against Imam’s (Khomeini) will? “Fallahian said, responding to
a question about the victims of the massacres of 1988 (MEK members and supporters) who were serving their
sentences.
"When someone is a member of
a military group, and that group is fighting with us, regardless of whether
that person is armed or not, he is one of them (and should be executed).”
Fallahian said referring to MEK members.
In the summer of 1988
Khomeini, the supreme leader of regime issued a religious decree calling for
the massacre.
“Whoever at any stage
continues to belong to the (PMOI/MEK) must be executed. Annihilate the enemies
of Islam immediately!...Those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain steadfast
in their support for the MEK are waging war on God, and are condemned to
execution…It is naive to show mercy to those who wage war on God,” reads part
of the decree.
A committee of four men was
formed to implement
the order, and in a matter of few months over 30,000 political prisoners were
executed, mostly members and supporters of the MEK.
Fallahian is not the only
official confessing to the massacre of political prisoners and MEK members and
supporters. Ahmad
Khatami, a board member of the regime’s Assembly of Experts, in Tehran Friday
prayers sermon called for the perpetrators of the massacre of MEK members to be
awarded medals.
Mullah Abbasian, another
Friday prayers imam, made similar remarks and said:
“During the election season
we witnessed how a number of people sought to change the MEK’s image and
criticized those who stood against the MEK… Hat’s off to the judge who executed
MEK members”
Earlier this month in an
interview with a state news agency Ali Razini, the head of Branch 41 of the Supreme Court – said that
the execution of prisoners in 1988 in what has been named the 1988 massacre was
“fair” and “lawful”. In the interview he confessed that the objective of the
massacre was to uproot the MEK.
“Rulings by the top 20
judges and I ensured the country’s security at that time and ever since. As a
consequence, the MEK can never establish itself here. We nipped them in the bud.”
Razini said referring to
the rulings of massacre of thousands of MEK members.
Last week a number of
political prisoners in Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj in a letter to UN Human
Rights council wrote: “The formation of a committee to investigate the massacre
in 1988 is necessary not only for the same crimes and prosecution of the perpetrators, but
also for preventing repeat of such atrocities. The fact is that the number of
executions and human rights violations in Iran are still catastrophic, as the
perpetrators of those crimes were not held accountable or punished...”
Marking the 29th anniversary of this horrific
purge, the time has come to hold the mullah’s regime accountable for crimes
against humanity.
*****
More about MEK:
A Long Conflict between the
Clerical Regime and the MEK
The origins of the MEK date
back to before the 1979 Iranian Revolution., the MEK helped to overthrow the
dictatorship of Shah Reza Pahlavi, but it quickly became a bitter enemy of the
emerging the religious fascism under the pretext of Islamic Republic. To this day, the MEK and NCRI
describe Ruhollah Khomenei and his associates as having co-opted a popular
revolution in order to empower themselves while imposing a fundamentalist view
of Islam onto the people of Iran.
Under the Islamic Republic,
the MEK was quickly
marginalized and affiliation with it was criminalized. Much of the
organization’s leadership went to neighboring Iraq and built an exile community
called Camp Ashraf, from which the MEK organized activities aimed at ousting
the clerical regime and bringing the Iranian Revolution back in line with its pro-democratic
origins. But the persistence of these efforts also prompted the struggling
regime to crack down with extreme violence on the MEK and other opponents of
theocratic rule.
The crackdowns culminated in the massacre
of political prisoners in the summer of 1988, as the Iran-Iraq War was coming
to a close. Thousands of political prisoners were held in Iranian jails at that
time, many of them having already served out their assigned prison sentences. And with the MEK
already serving as the main voice of opposition to the regime at that time, its
members and supporters naturally made up the vast majority of the population of
such prisoners.
As the result of a fatwa
handed down by Khomeini, the regime convened what came to be known as the Death Commission, assigning
three judges the task of briefly interviewing prisoners to determine whether
they retained any sympathy for the MEK or harbored any resentment toward the
existing government. Those who were deemed to have shown any sign of continued opposition were sentenced
to be hanged. After a period of about three months, an estimated 30,000 people
had been put to death. Many other killings of MEK members preceded and followed
that incident, so that today the Free Iran rally includes an annual memorial for approximately
120,000 martyrs from the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.
The obvious motive behind
the 1988 massacre and other such killings was the destruction of the MEK. And
yet it has not only
survived but thrived, gaining allies to form the NCRI and acquiring the
widespread support that is put on display at each year’s Free Iran rally. In
the previous events, the keynote speech was delivered by Maryam Rajavi, who has
been known to receive
several minutes of applause from the massive crowd as she takes the stage. Her
speeches provide concrete examples of the vulnerability of the clerical regime
and emphasize the ever-improving prospects for the MEK to lead the way in
bringing about regime change.
The recipients of that
message are diverse and they include more than just the assembled crowd of MEK
members and supporters. The expectation is that the international dignitaries
at each year’s event will carry the message of the MEK back to their own governments and help
to encourage more policymakers to recognize the role of the Iranian Resistance
in the potential creation of a free and democratic Iranian nation. It is also
expected that the event will inspire millions of Iranians to plan for the eventual removal of the
clerical regime. And indeed, the MEK broadcasts the event via its own satellite
television network, to millions of Iranian households with illegal hookups.
MEK’s Domestic Activism and
Intelligence Network
What’s more, the MEK retains a solid base of
activists inside its Iranian homeland. In the run-up to this year’s Free Iran
rally the role of those activists was particularly evident, since the event
comes just a month and a half after the latest Iranian presidential elections,
in which heavily
stage-managed elections resulted in the supposedly moderate incumbent Hassan
Rouhani securing reelection. His initial election in 2013 was embraced by some
Western policymakers as a possible sign of progress inside the Islamic
Republic, but aside
from the 2015 nuclear agreement with six world powers, none of his
progressive-sounding campaign promises have seen the light of day.
Rouhani’s poor record has
provided additional fertile ground for the message of the MEK and Maryam
Rajavi. The Iranian
Resistance has long argued that change from within the regime is impossible,
and this was strongly reiterated against the backdrop of the presidential
elections, when MEK activists used graffiti, banners, and other communications
to describe the sitting
president as an “imposter.” Many of those same communications decried Rouhani’s
leading challenger, Ebrahim Raisi, as a “murderer,” owing to his leading role
in the massacre of MEK supporters in 1988.
That fact helped to
underscore the domestic support for the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, insofar as many people
who participated in the election said they recognized Raisi as the worst the
regime had to offer, and that they were eager to prevent him from taking
office. But this is not to say that voters saw Rouhani in a positive light, especially where the MEK is
concerned. Under the Rouhani administration, the Justice Minister is headed by
Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who also served on the Death Commission and declared as
recently as last year that he was proud of himself for having carried out what he described as God’s
command of death for MEK supporters.
With this and other aspects
of the Islamic Republic’s record, the MEK’s pre-election activism was mainly
focused on encouraging Iranians to boycott the polls. The publicly displayed banners and
posters urged a “vote for regime change,” and many of them included the
likeness of Maryam Rajavi, suggesting that her return to Iran from France would
signify a meaningful alternative to the hardline servants of the clerical regime who are currently the
only option in any Iranian national election.
Naturally, this direct
impact on Iranian politics is the ultimate goal of MEK activism. But it
performs other recognizable roles from its position in exile, not just limited
to the motivational and organization role of the Free Iran rally and other,
smaller gatherings.
In fact, the MEK rose to particular international prominence in 2005 when it
released information that had been kept secret by the Iranian regime about its
nuclear program. These revelations included the locations of two secret nuclear
sites: a uranium
enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy water plant at Arak, capable of
producing enriched plutonium.
As well as having a
substantial impact on the status of international policy regarding the Iranian
nuclear program, the revelations also highlighted the MEK’s popular support and strong network
inside Iran. Although Maryam Rajavi and the rest of the leadership of the
People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran reside outside of the country, MEK
affiliates are scattered throughout Iranian society with some even holding positions within hardline
government and military institutions, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Corps.
Drawing upon the resources
of that intelligence network, the MEK has continued to share crucial
information with Western governments in recent years, some of it related to the nuclear program
and some of it related to other matters including terrorist training, military
development, and the misappropriation of financial resources. The MEK has
variously pointed out that the Revolutionary Guard controls well over half of Iran’s gross domestic
product, both directly and through a series of front companies and close
affiliates in all manner of Iranian industries.
In February of this year,
the Washington, D.C. office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran held press
conferences to detail MEK intelligence regarding the expansion of terrorist
training programs being carried out across Iran by the Revolutionary Guards.
The growth of these programs reportedly followed upon direct orders from Iranian
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and coincided with increased recruitment of foreign
nationals to fight on Tehran’s behalf in regional conflicts including the
Syrian and Yemeni civil wars.
In the weeks following that
press conference, the
MEK’s parent organization also prepared documents and held other talks
explaining the source of some of the Revolutionary Guards’ power and wealth.
Notably, this series of revelations reflected upon trends in American policy
toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. And other revelations continue to do so, even now.
MEK Intelligence Bolstering
US Policy Shifts
Soon after taking office,
and around the time the MEK identified a series of Revolutionary Guard training
camps, US President Donald Trump directed the State Department to review the possibility of
designating Iran’s hardline paramilitary as a foreign terrorist organization.
Doing so would open the Revolutionary Guards up to dramatically increased
sanctions – a strategy that the MEK prominently supports as a means of weakening the barriers to regime
change within Iran.
The recent revelations of
the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran have gone a long way toward
illustrating both the reasons for giving this designation to the Revolutionary
Guards and the
potential impact of doing so. Since then, the MEK has also used its
intelligence gathering to highlight the ways in which further sanctioning the
Guards could result in improved regional security, regardless of the specific
impact on terrorist financing.
For example, in June the
NCRI’s Washington, D.C. office held yet another press conference wherein it
explained that MEK operatives had become aware of another order for escalation
that had been given by Supreme Leader Khamenei, this one related to the Iranian ballistic missile
program. This had also been a longstanding point of contention for the Trump
administration and the rest of the US government, in light of several ballistic
missile launches that have been carried out since the conclusion of nuclear negotiations,
including an actual strike on eastern Syria.
That strike was widely
viewed as a threatening gesture toward the US. And the MEK has helped to
clarify the extent of the threat by identifying 42 separate missile sites
scattered throughout Iran,
including one that was working closely with the Iranian institution that had
previously been tasked with weaponizing aspects of the Iranian nuclear program.
The National Council of
Resistance of Iran (NCRI) led by Maryam Rajavi is thus going to great lengths to encourage the
current trend in US policy, which is pointing to more assertiveness and
possibly even to the ultimate goal of regime change. The MEK is also striving
to move Europe in a similar direction, and the July 1 gathering is likely to show further progress toward
that goal. This is because hundreds of American and European politicians and
scholars have already declared support for the NCRI and MEK and the platform of
Maryam Rajavi. The number grows every year, while the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran
continues to collect intelligence that promises to clarify the need for regime
change and the practicality of their strategy for achieving it.
source:
LEADING OFFICIALS OFIRANIAN REGIME ADMIT THE MASSACRE OF MEK MEMBERS
