Joachim Rücker from Germany, President of the UN Human Rights Council (2015), addressed the third day of the Free Iran World Summit on July 3, 2023. The summit was under the title: Prosecute Iran’s Regime Leaders for Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide.

Joachim Rücker: UN Must Investigate 1988 Massacre in Iran

The script of the full speech of Mr. Joachim Rücker follows:

Thank you. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it’s very hard to follow on this very, very moving piece of one of the victims, survivors, but let me nevertheless say that I came here by conviction.

As a former diplomat, I would probably add that I cannot counter-write each and every demand that’s been made today or in the last two days. However, I’m very clear in my support for JVMI. I think they deserve every support. And I think today’s audience and today’s events, 35 years after the massacres in 1988, bear witness to that.

I think we owe a lot to the UN system, which is in a way working, especially the special rapporteurs on Iran. When I was President of the UN Human Rights Council, we commissioned and decommissioned several special rapporteurs. It’s a working system. And we also did the same thing for commissions of investigations. And I think those are very important instruments for the international community, and they should be used.

What is greatly satisfying is that the UN Human Rights Council on 24th of November 2022, in a special session on the situation in Iran, commissioned a fact-finding mission to investigate the alleged human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is related to the protests that started on 16th September 2022. And I think this is a very good thing that the Human Rights Council actually acted on all the terrible things we heard and are actually happening to this very day.

And I hope the commission, which will actually give its first oral report in the Human Rights Council on the 5th of July, which is Wednesday of this week, will actually be able to find the facts behind the terrible news we hear and be able to address them, including lots of fates of individuals we have heard in the last couple of days and weeks, including, which I found very moving, the fate of Parvazi and many, many others.

Now, of course, we all know and the people gathered here today… by the way, I heard that a lot of survivors are actually in Albania. And since I’ve spent time in Kosovo and Albania, let me say something in Albanian… I know that you’re participating today and it’s quite an honor to be with you.

And in this context, I think we all agree that it’s not enough that this commission of, the Fact-finding Commission was set up for the ongoing persecution of people since the 16th of September of 2022. But we would really, really want to see that something is happening with regard to 1988.

And there’s no better way to say this in a UN language that the international community understands than in the way that Asma Jahangir has in fact put it when she did her report and informed the UN Human Rights Council and informed the General Assembly.

She said, and I quote, “Between July and August 1988, thousands of political prisoners, men, women, and teenagers were reportedly executed pursuant to a fatwa issued by then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. A three-man commission was reportedly created with a view to determining who should be executed. Over the years, a high number, a high number of reports have been issued about the 1988 massacres. If the number of persons who disappeared and were executed can be disputed, overwhelming evidence shows that thousands of persons were summarily killed. Recently, these killings have been acknowledged by some at the highest level of the state. The families of the victims have a right to know the truth about these events and the fate of their loved ones without risking reprisal. They have the right to a remedy which includes the right to an effective investigation of the facts and public disclosure of the truth and the right to reparation.” And that’s the end of the quote.

I think there’s no better way to put it and there’s no better way that would be understood by the international community because this is also a language that they will absolutely relate to.

So, I think we should jointly continue to appeal, as we have done in the last couple of months intensively, to the international community as such, but also to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, and to the Human Rights Council to set up an investigation commission into the massacres of 1988.

And that I think would be a very good outcome of today’s meeting. Thank you very much.