Wednesday marked the 55th session of the trial of Hamid Noury, a former prison official in Iran’s Gohardasht prison (Karaj), who was involved in the torture and execution of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988. Noury was arrested in 2019 during a trip to Sweden and was later put on trial for his crimes against humanity.
During the trial, many witnesses and plaintiffs testified about the atrocities committed in Iran’s prisons, by Noury and other regime authorities. They also recounted stories of bravery and steadfastness by members and supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), who refused to kneel before the mullahs’ regime and stood by their devotion to the Iranian Resistance and the cause of freedom and democracy in Iran. And they paid the ultimate price, holding their head high as they were sent to the gallows in dozens during the 1988 massacre of Iranian political prisoners. Thirty-four years after the regime tried to destroy their lives and legacy, their story is being told in the halls of Stockholm court.
But the Noury trial also showed displayed the resilience of the Iranian Resistance in another way, which was the constant presence of Iranians in front of the court in Sweden.
Throughout the trial, through snow and rain, sleet and hail, these Iranian expats held their rallies in front of the court, hours on end, in the freezing cold, calling for justice and accountability for four decades of crime. They held pictures of the victims, placards that exposed the crimes committed by the regime’s leaders, including the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and its new president Ebrahim Raisi.
These are supporters of the MEK, many of whom have lost their loved ones to the regime’s brutality or have directly suffered at the hands of regime authorities in Iran’s prisons. They have been driven away from their homeland for years and decades, yet they have not given up on their compatriots and continue to raise awareness on the plight of the Iranian people and the human rights conditions in Iran.
They are present not only in Stockholm, but in London, Paris, Washington, Toronto, Sydney, and dozens of other cities across the world.
Their resilience, and determination, and their constant presence in every corner of the world is an extension of the resistance of thousands of Iranian political prisoners who sacrificed their lives to keep the flame of freedom alit.
They are the voice of the Iranian people, the brave Resistance Units, the unemployed and underpaid workers, the hardworking farmers deprived of water, the protesters who are lingering in Iran’s prisons, Iranian students who dream of a better future. They are living proof that the yearning for freedom in Iran cannot be killed. They are also a reminder that regardless of global policies, a day will eventually come that the people of Iran will live in freedom, and human rights abusers will be held accountable for their countless crimes.
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