A searing investigation by the United Nations exposes the shocking breadth of Iran’s atrocities during its brutal crackdown on dissent in the 1980s.
According to UN Special Rapporteur Javaid Rehman, in the summer of 1988 Iranian authorities presided over the extrajudicial killings of thousands from minority groups like Baha’is and Kurds, as well as members of opposition outfits such as Mojahedin-e-Khalq and leftist organizations.
Join the JBN+ WhatsApp GroupThe massacres were greenlighted by a sordid religious decree issued by then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, calling for the execution of any prisoners failing to demonstrate sufficient loyalty to the Islamist revolution.
Those targeted were put to death by hanging and firing squads in a nationwide purge overseen by Iran’s infamous “death committee” that operated with total impunity. Its four members, including late President Ebrahim Raisi and possible successor Mostafa Pourmohammadi, condemned prisoners to death en masse after show trials devoid of any semblance of due process.
“This is not a historical issue, as many people think,” Rehman said. “It is a current issue. There are serious concerns about gross violations of human rights that continue to this day.”
“The death committee was responsible for a sweeping purge that targeted those accused of opposition to the government,” Rehman said, adding that many of them were “executed without a fair trial, marking a clampdown that included torture, sexual assault, and other inhuman treatments.”
Historically, Iran’s intense purges spanning the 1980s represents the high-water mark of the regime’s campaign to extinguish opposition voices through state-sanctioned slaughter. With the UN deeming the purges for the first time as a genocide under international law, their findings could open the door to arrest warrants and travel bans for Iranian officials directly involved in the massacre.
Why only now should definitely go to the ICC.Unfortunately these murders get away with it and the US gives them billions of dollars what a shame
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