{"id":7208,"date":"2017-03-18T12:33:49","date_gmt":"2017-03-18T17:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=7208"},"modified":"2017-03-18T12:33:49","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T17:33:49","slug":"h-res-188-condemning-the-government-of-the-islamic-republic-of-iran-for-the-1988-massacre-of-political-prisoners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/7208\/","title":{"rendered":"H.Res.188 – Condemning the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for the 1988 massacre of political prisoners"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
US House of Representatives<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Resolution also calls for justice for the victims.
\n115th Congress (2017-2018)<\/strong> |<\/span><\/p>\n

Text: H.Res.188 \u2014 115th Congress (2017-2018)
\nText available as:
\nIntroduced in House (03\/09\/2017)
\n<\/em>
\n[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
\n[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
\n[H. Res. 188 Introduced in House (IH)]<\/em><\/strong>
\n115th CONGRESS
\n1st Session
\nH. RES. 188<\/strong><\/p>\n

Condemning the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for the 1988
\nmassacre of political prisoners and calling for justice for the
\nvictims.
\n_______________________________________________________________________
\nIN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES<\/p>\n

March 9, 2017<\/p>\n

Mr. McCaul (for himself, Mr. Royce of California, Mr. Engel, Mrs.
\nComstock, Mr. McClintock, Mr. Sessions, Mr. Keating, Mr. Sherman, Mr.
\nYoung of Alaska, and Ms. Judy Chu of California) submitted the
\nfollowing resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign\u00a0Affairs<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RESOLUTION<\/strong><\/p>\n

Condemning the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for the 1988 massacre of political prisoners and calling for justice for the victims.<\/p>\n

Whereas over a 4-month period in 1988, the Government of the Islamic Republic of
\nIran carried out the barbaric mass executions of thousands of political
\nprisoners and many unrelated political groups;
\nWhereas according to a report by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, the
\nmassacre was carried out pursuant to a fatwa, or religious decree,
\nissued by then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that targeted
\nthe People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI), also known as the Mujahedeen-e-
\nKhalq (MEK);
\nWhereas according to a November 2, 2007, report by Amnesty International,
\n“between 27 July 1988 and the end of that year, thousands of political
\nprisoners [in Iran], including prisoners of conscience, were executed in
\nprisons nationwide”;
\nWhereas the killings were carried out on the orders of a judge, an official from
\nthe Ministry of Intelligence, and a state prosecutor, known to the
\nprisoners as “Death Commissions” which undertook proceedings in a
\nmanner designed to eliminate the regime’s opponents;
\nWhereas those personally responsible for these mass executions include senior
\nofficials serving in the current Government of Iran;
\nWhereas prisoners were reportedly brought before the commissions and briefly
\nquestioned about their political affiliation, and any prisoner who
\nrefused to renounce his or her affiliation with groups perceived as
\nenemies by the regime was then taken away for execution;
\nWhereas the victims included thousands of people, including teenagers and
\npregnant women, imprisoned merely for participating in peaceful street
\nprotests and for possessing political reading material, many of whom had
\nalready served or were currently serving prison sentences;
\nWhereas prisoners were executed in groups, some in mass hangings and others by
\nfiring squad, with their bodies disposed of in mass graves;
\nWhereas according to Amnesty International, “the majority of those killed were
\nsupporters of the PMOI, but hundreds of members and supporters of other
\npolitical groups . . . were also among the execution victims”;
\nWhereas later waves of executions targeted religious minorities, such as members
\nof the Baha’i faith, many of whom were often subjected to brutal torture
\nbefore they were killed;
\nWhereas the families of the executed were denied information about their loved
\nones and were prohibited from mourning them in public;
\nWhereas in a recently disclosed audiotape, the late Hussein Ali Montazeri, a
\ngrand ayatollah who served as Khomeini’s chief deputy, noted the
\nregime’s efforts to target the MEK and said that the 1988 mass killings
\nwere “the greatest crime committed during the Islamic Republic, for
\nwhich history will condemn us”;
\nWhereas the current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was reportedly aware of, and
\nlater publicly condoned the massacre;
\nWhereas in violation of its international obligations, the Government of Iran
\ncontinues to systematically perpetrate gross violations of the
\nfundamental human rights of the Iranian people; and
\nWhereas the November 2, 2007, report from Amnesty International concluded
\n“there should be no impunity for human rights violations, no matter
\nwhere or when they took place. The 1988 executions should be subject to
\nan independent impartial investigation, and all those responsible should
\nbe brought to justice, and receive appropriate penalties”: Now,
\ntherefore, be it
\nResolved, That the House of Representatives–
\n(1) condemns the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran
\nfor the 1988 massacre, and for denying the evidence of this
\nmanifest set of crimes against humanity;
\n(2) urges the Administration and United States allies to
\npublicly condemn the massacre, and pressure the Government of
\nIran to provide detailed information to the families of the
\nvictims about their loved ones and their final resting places;
\nand
\n(3) urges the United Nations <\/a> Special Rapporteur on the
\nhuman rights situation in Iran and the United Nations Human
\nRights Council to create a Commission of Inquiry to fully
\ninvestigate the massacre and to gather evidence and identify
\nthe names and roles of specific perpetrators with a view
\ntowards bringing them to justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Resolution also calls for justice for the victims. 115th Congress (2017-2018) | Text: H.Res.188 \u2014 115th Congress (2017-2018) Text available as: Introduced in House […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208","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=7208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7210,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208\/revisions\/7210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}