{"id":5640,"date":"2016-09-26T21:37:08","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T02:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=5640"},"modified":"2016-09-26T21:37:08","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T02:37:08","slug":"calls-for-u-n-committee-to-investigate-iran-prison-massacres-during-geneva-meetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/5640\/","title":{"rendered":"Calls for U.N. committee to investigate Iran prison massacres during Geneva meetings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"news-conference-in-geneva-calling-for-prosecution\"<\/a>
News Conference in Geneva calling for prosecution of Iranian regime\u2019s officials involved in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By; Siavosh Hosseini<\/em><\/p>\n

Recent revelations about the extent of the Iranian government\u2019s complicity in major prison massacres in 1988, during which 30,000 political prisoners were killed, has spurred new calls for those responsible\u2013some of whom are still in power\u2013to face trial for their actions.
\n<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ground Report, Sep 26, 2016<\/strong> – A major goal of the Iranian political opposition has been the prosecution of Iranian government officials who were involved in the 1988 massacre of more than 30,000 ideological dissidents. Similar crimes in Lebanon and Rwanda have been tried by international criminal tribunals; the Iranian resistance has sought the establishment of a tribunal through the United Nations <\/a> to try those implicated in the massacre.
\nFollowing the issuing of a fatwa by Khomeini, 30,000 members or supporters of the People\u2019s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI, or MEK) were gathered\u2013some being re-arrested after having already served prison sentences\u2013and hanged in groups during six months of systematic executions.
\nThe release of a 1988 audio tape of Ali Montazeri, then-successor to Ayatollah Khomeini, arguing with a \u201cdeath council\u201d composed of the Iranian officials in charge of the massacre revealed the extent to which the Iranian government was aware of an involved in the killings.
\nThis week, the goals of those who want these officials to face trial gained a voice within the proceedings at the United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva as Alejo Vidal-Quadras, former vice president of the European Parliament, urged the creation of a committee to investigate the massacre.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cKhomeini\u2019s fatwa of killing members and supporters of the PMOI leaves no doubt that he ordered a crime against humanity\u201d, said Vidal-Quadras.
\n\u201cTherefore, all of the people who had a role in implementing this decree were involved in a crime against humanity. The 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran is an example of both a crime against humanity and a genocide. Based on international conventions, neither crime against humanity nor genocide are expired with the passage of time.
\n\u201cTherefore we have called for the 1988 massacre to be on the agenda of the current Human Rights Council. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights must issue a call for an investigation in this regard.\u201d
\nA committee called \u201cJustice for the Victims of 1988 Massacre in Iran\u201d was also formed at the UNHRC meeting. Among its members is Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate held hostage for years by rebels, and Tahar Boumedra, who was the U.N.\u2019s top human rights representative in Iraq.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Betancourt said the tape\u2019s release \u201chas re-opened a wound,\u201d and urged the assembled delegates topursue justice for the victim\u2019s families.Because of the media blackout imposed during the massacre by the Iranian government, the world was mostly unaware of the killings as they were happening, but the scope of what took place later became clear to the outside world. Within Iran, discussion of the massacre was forbidden.
\nRecently, however, Tehran has been unable to control people\u2019s ability to learn more about the massacre and discuss it via social media. The resulting increased awareness of the killings has caused many in Tehran to call what took place \u201cjustifiable\u201d while others have sought to distance themselves from it, causing a divide within Tehran. Current Justice Minister Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi, who was a ringleader in the massacre, has been defiant in the face of criticism.
\nWhile the creation of an international criminal tribunal is a serious undertaking, it is not unprecedented; many crimes have been prosecuted well after they were committed by international courts, and supporters of the Iranian opposition hope to create one more story of international bodies bringing justice to crimes that history might otherwise have ignored<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By; Siavosh Hosseini Recent revelations about the extent of the Iranian government\u2019s complicity in major prison massacres in 1988, during which 30,000 political prisoners were […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iranresistance","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5642,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5640\/revisions\/5642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}