Maryam Rajavi, the president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), gave a speech to the 2021 Free Iran World Summit earlier this month, during the third day of the conference (July 12), which was focused on seeking justice for the 1988 massacre victims.
The massacre resulted in the deaths of 30,000 political prisoners in just a few months, following an order by Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini to slaughter all those in prison who refused to abandon their support for the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK). The prisoners, from all across the country, were sentenced to hanging by the death commission after a minute-long trial with no lawyers or witnesses.
For 30 years, the regime has escaped accountability and the mullahs directly involved have been promoted for their vile crimes, including Iran’s new president Ebrahim Raisi. Rajavi used her speech to call for the international community to hold the regime to account before they can destroy any more of the mass graves that serve as evidence of their crimes, which she notes is the demand of the victims’ families and the Iranian people.
Rajavi said: “The massacre of the People’s Mojahedin had another important aspect, which comprised of a vast effort to cover up this crime from the very first weeks after the start of the massacre, Massoud Rajavi issued a wave of statements, revelations, and calls for justice in Iran and abroad.”
She advised that from August 1988, Massoud began to reveal information about the massacre to any international body that would listen, including writing to the UN Secretary-General, but the international community did nothing to hold the mullahs to account.
Rajavi said: “We say to the world community, especially to Western governments, that Mullah Raisi is a criminal guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity in 1988. He is guilty because, as one of the regime’s highest Judiciary officials during the last four decades, he played a decisive role in the execution and murder of the Iranian people’s children. He is guilty because he is one of the leaders of a regime that killed 1,500 youths during the November 2019 uprising, a figure that researchers say is actually three times higher. Raisi is guilty because even today, he defends all his past crimes and insists on continuing them.”
She continued to ask the United Nations to recognize the 1988 massacre as genocide and hold the mullahs to account for that, rather than allow them to have a position at international gatherings.