1988 Massacre
Speech by Strawn Stevenson on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the 1988 Massacre of the political prisoners in Iran, August 25
The UN now has a refutable evidence of the summary execution of more than thirty thousand supporters of the PMOI/MEK by the Iranian Regime in the summer of 1988. They have enough evidence to present to the international court who could not issue indictments against those responsible many of whom still hold senior positions of power inside the Iranian regime.
This atrocity must be ranked as a crime against humanity and one of the most horrific mass murders of the late 20th century.
The massacre victims were buried in mass graves and their fates were largely obfuscated by the regime. The Iranian regime has already begun destroying the mass graves of political prisoners secretly executed by the mullahs’ security forces in the 1980’s, despite a plea from the Amnesty International to halt the desecration and to let an investigation to take place.
On July 20, some of the relatives of those killed during the 1988 massacre visited one of the secret grave, sites in the city of Ahvaz only to find that the graves of their loved ones had been destroyed. This destruction is not only disrespectful to the dead, it also prevents a real investigation into the massacre from ever taking place by destroying evidence, which of course is precisely what the mullahs want.
Yet thirty years on from this barbaric crime, the international condemnation has been slow to emerge. Indeed the west still seems determined to overlook this perhaps the most outrageous barbarity since the end of World War II, so that it can continue to sign lucrative trade deals with Iran. It’s a disgrace that there has been no prosecution of the criminals who orchestrated and carried out the gruesome 1988 murders.
