Iran is on a killing spree

OPINION:

On a bitter winter day in early 2009, I touched the rough walls of a cell in ward 209 of Iran’s Evin Prison, where I was being held after my arrest in Tehran. My crime: daring to protest the Iranian regime’s human rights violations. I was 21.

In that cell, I could almost hear the footsteps of those who, in the scorching summer of 1988, spent their final hours there before being taken to their execution.

In 2014, after five years in prison, I was released thanks to growing international attention to my case. My arrest had received widespread media coverage, and numerous Western lawmakers had publicly called for my release. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations advocated on my behalf. Statements from the U.S. State Department and Senate mentioned my name alongside those of other political prisoners.

After my release, I became even more determined to speak out, document the truth and advocate for justice on behalf of those who could not.

I recently read a horrible headline on a news site affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: “Why the 1988 Executions Must Be Repeated.” The article described the regime’s conduct during the 1988 massacre as a successful operation.

On July 27, just after the piece was published, the government executed two political prisoners: 47-year-old Mehdi Hassani and 70-year-old Behrooz Ehsani. They were arrested in the aftermath of the Mahsa uprising and were supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). They had received huge levels of political and human rights support, and the European Parliament had called for a halt to their execution. The regime ignored it all.

Ali Younesi, 25, a star student and gold medal winner of the International Olympiad on Astronomy, has been imprisoned in Iran for more than five years on charges including “corruption on earth.” His whereabouts are unknown.

Ehsan Faridi, 22, an engineering student at Tabriz University, was sentenced to death on charges of supporting the People’s Mojahedin Organization. He is being held in the “quarantine” wing of Tabriz Central Prison.

Then there is Maryam Akbari Monfared, a political prisoner whose four siblings were executed by the Iranian regime, two of them during the 1988 massacre. A mother of three, Maryam has been held in Qarchak Prison since 2009. She was initially sentenced to 15 years, but for bravely filing a complaint from inside prison against regime officials for the execution of her siblings during the 1988 massacre, her sentence was extended two years. Her youngest daughter was 3½ at the time of her arrest; she is now 19.

Facing mounting economic, social and political crises, the regime has reverted to its old solution: mass killing. It’s what Ruhollah Khomeini did in 1988 by issuing a fatwa that led to the execution of more than 30,000 political prisoners, mostly members or supporters of the PMOI/MEK. Their bodies are buried in unmarked mass graves.

More than being at war with a foreign enemy, the Iranian regime is at war with its own people.

For decades, the atrocity of the Iranian regime’s 1988 massacre of political prisoners was buried in silence. People did not dare to speak about it, and media outlets refrained from reporting it.

That changed in 2016 with the efforts of the Justice Seeking Movement, led by Maryam Rajavi. A hidden truth emerged from the darkness.

In July 2024, United Nations special rapporteur Javaid Rehman declared the massacre a crime against humanity and called for a U.N. truth-finding mechanism. Amnesty International has described it as an “ongoing crime,” precisely because none of the perpetrators has been held accountable and many now hold the highest positions in government.

As someone born shortly after the dark era of the 1988 massacre, I feel a deep historical responsibility toward all those who gave their lives for Iran’s freedom. In 2018, I wrote the book “The Undefeatable Martyrs of Summer 1988,” memorializing 67 victims of the massacre.

Many families who shared the stories of their loved ones demanded anonymity. They still fear arrest 37 years after the massacre.

That impunity has emboldened the killers. Today, they openly threaten another massacre, without fear, because they know the cost of their past atrocities has been nothing.

Thousands of families still don’t know where their loved ones lie. They are forbidden even to mourn. Now, the regime talks openly of repeating the 1988 massacre.

Every day, I hear from families of those now facing the gallows. In June, 107 people were executed, and more than 684 in the first half of the year. This is clear proof of a new genocide in progress.

I write this piece as a warning.

The international community must condemn the brutal and systematic human rights violations committed by the Iranian regime. Political and economic relations with this regime should be conditioned on concrete improvements in human rights, including an end to executions and torture.

The U.N. Fact-Finding Mission on Iran must formally investigate the 1988 massacre. The perpetrators and those responsible for the executions and mass killings in Iran must be prosecuted in an international court, and their impunity must be brought to an end.

• Shabnam Madadzadeh is an author and a former political prisoner from Iran.