Amnesty International issued a statement on September 13 calling on members of the United Nations Human Rights Council to seek a halt to the Iranian regime’s measures aimed at “concealing the mass graves of victims of the 1988 ‘prison massacres’ and immediately open an international investigation into the extrajudicial execution and enforced disappearance of thousands of dissidents amounting to ongoing crimes against humanity.”
In the past few months, Iranian regime authorities have installed two-meter-high concrete walls surrounding the Khavaran mass graves site near the Iranian capital of Tehran. The remains of at least several hundred political prisoners secretly executed in the summer of 1988 are buried in this area. The regime’s recent construction measures has triggered serious concerns among locals and relatives of the 1988 massacre victims that regime officials are preparing to destroy, tamper, or even completely cover the mass grave site from public view. The newly installed concrete walls have made the site no longer visible from the outside. Authorities have also placed guards at its entrance who only permit relatives to enter on certain days.
For 34 yrs, Iran's authorities have systematically and deliberately concealed & destroyed evidence that could be used to establish the truth about the scale of extrajudicial executions carried out in 1988 & obtain justice for victims and their families.https://t.co/kZtFgsU3De
— Amnesty Iran (@AmnestyIran) September 13, 2022
This is the latest in a series of measures by Iranian authorities to destroy evidence of the 1988 massacre, which jurists have described as a crime against humanity and genocide.
In September of 2020, regime authorities destroyed a mass grave site in the city of Ahvaz, Khuzestan province, southwest Iran. Many victims of the summer 1988 massacre were buried in this area and regime authorities constructed a boulevard over this area in an obvious attempt to destroy all evidence of its horrendous crime against humanity.
There are many such mass grave sites checkered across Iran where a large number of political prisoners executed between 1981 and 1988 have been buried. These graves sites share similarities in being located in very distant areas, having no name or registration, and no gravestones for the victims.
In April 2021, the clerical regime began destroying the Khavaran cemetery in Tehran. This was especially concerning as the issue of the 1988 massacre had been raised by various international right groups, including six United Nations human rights experts issuing a detailed letter in September 2020 demanding clarity on the fate of thousands of Iranian political prisoners executed in 1988.
At the time, regime authorities even forced many from the minority Bahai community to bury their loved ones in Khavaran, which they strongly refused.
I strongly condemn #Iran regime’s inhuman the destruction of the mass graves of the victims of the #1988Massacre in Tehran’s #Khavaran Cemetery.
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) April 24, 2021
These areas are proof of the regime’s horrific crimes against humanity
During the past three decades, the genocidal mullahs’ regime has constantly sought to destroy all signs of such mass gravesites through a variety of construction projects. These areas are proof of the regime’s horrific crimes against humanity and all officials are very keen on destroying evidence of the past.
In October 2020, Amnesty International issued a similar statement warning about regime officials destroying the mass graves of victims of the 1988 massacre of political prisoners. Referring to a report of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council at the time, Amnesty had called on the international community to “ensure that the geographical coordinates and information related to mass graves are identified and documented by a well-organized global procedure.”
“The purpose of these illegal acts is not only to prevent the handover of the remains to the families but also to block the path of litigation and judicial justice for the 1988 victims,” Amnesty International added.
“The Iranian authorities cannot simply build a wall around a crime scene and think that all their crimes will be erased and forgotten. For 34 years, the authorities have systematically and deliberately concealed and destroyed key evidence that could be used to establish the truth about the scale of the extrajudicial executions carried out in 1988 and obtain justice and reparations for the victims and their families,” said Diana Eltahawy, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
Since late May 2022 activists have been posting photographs and video footage of the new walls and security cameras installed around Khavaran, allowing Amnesty to corroborate the accounts of family members who have visited the mass grave site.
Tehran, #Iran
Images of security cameras and concrete walls installed around the Khavaran mass grave site, located in the southeast section of the Iranian capital.#1988Massacre pic.twitter.com/HcHHNdYxIK— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) May 28, 2022
For over three decades, regime authorities have attempted to cover up any and all evidence of the 1988 prison massacres by repeatedly razing and bulldozing over confirmed or suspected mass grave sites, parallel to destroying ad hoc grave markings and trees planted by the victims’ families.
Relatives, survivors of the 1988 prison massacre, and human rights activists have been systematically forbidden from gathering at mass grave sites across the country as they seek to commemorate the victims. Authorities also prevent them from erecting memorials or laying flowers. Some have even been prosecuted and jailed simply for seeking truth and justice.
Not one official has been brought to justice in Iran for the regime’s continuous crimes against humanity associated with the 1988 prison massacres. Some officials involved hold or previously held high positions in the regime’s echelons. Ebrahim Raisi, the regime’s current president and former head of the judiciary, was a member of the regime’s notorious “death commission” which carried out kangaroo trials that lasted minutes and resulted in the extrajudicial execution of thousands of political prisoners in Evin and Gohardasht prisons near Tehran, and other prisons across Iran, between late July and early September 1988. At the same time, similar mass executions were being carried out across Iran, with more than 30,000 political prisoners being executed in the span of a few weeks.
The regime’s hasty efforts to destroy evidence of the 1988 massacre are also proof of regime officials fearing the repercussions of their decades-long rule of terror. In July, Hamid Noury, an assistant to the Deputy Prosecutor at the Gohardasht prison, was sentenced to life in prison by a Swedish court for his role in the 1988 massacre. The court case has set a precedent to prosecute other regime officials involved in human rights abuses. Currently, another complaint has been filed against Raisi in the United States.
But four decades of crimes against humanity will not go away with the destruction of the Khavaran cemetery.
