Amnesty International is calling on people to join
the campaign by promoting the hashtag #MassGraves88 on social media
Amnesty International is calling on people to join the campaign by promoting the hashtag #MassGraves88 on social media
At least “a
dozen political prisoners killed during a wave of mass extrajudicial executions
in August and September 1988 are buried” in the mass grave.
A footage
obtained by Amnesty
International “shows the site is gradually being buried beneath piles of
construction waste” after a construction near the area began earlier this year.
“Bulldozing the mass grave at Ahvaz will destroy crucial forensic evidence
that could be used to
bring those responsible for the 1988 mass extrajudicial executions to justice.
It would also deprive families of victims of their rights to truth, justice,
and reparation, including the right to bury their loved ones in dignity. By
joining Amnesty International’s
campaign, people can help to press Iran’s authorities to stop the imminent
destruction of the site,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research
and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
He added:
“Instead of desecrating
the mass grave with piles of rubbish and waste and further tormenting families,
who face repression for their efforts to protect the memory of their loved
ones, the authorities should be upholding their duty to preserve all Iran’s
mass grave sites so that
investigations can be carried out into the 1988 extrajudicial executions and
other mass killings.”
Amnesty
International is calling on people to join the campaign by promoting the
hashtag #MassGraves88 on social media.
The Iranian
regime executed more than
30,000 political prisoners, the overwhelming majority of whom were activists of
the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), upon a direct fatwa by
Khomeini in July 1988.
The victims
were buried in secret mass graves. The 1988 massacre was described as the worst
crime in the history of the Islamic Republic by the late Hossein-Ali Montazeri,
the heir apparent of Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the regime, at the time.
Many
perpetrators of this crime currently hold high positions within the regime.
Hassan Rouhani,
the president of the Iranian regime and many of his cabinet’s principal figures
held positions of influence in the summer of 1988 and were well aware of the
massacre. Some were prominent participants in it, and indeed Rouhani’s first-term Justice Minister,
Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, was one of four members of the Tehran death commission.
Last month
Pour-Mohammadi was replaced by Alireza Avaie. He filled a similar role on the
death commission in Khuzestan Province, the same province in which a mass grave is being
destroyed.
A
few days after the replacement, upon an order by Ali Khamenei, Pour-Mohammadi
was appointed as an advisor to head of the Iranian regime’s judiciary Sadegh
Larijani
No comments:
Post a Comment