Mullahs' regime executes large numbers of political prisoners

Reports from Iran say that due to escalating domestic crisis at home and increasing international isolation as well as the expansion of the resistance in and out of Iran, in recent months, Khomeini's anti-human regime has executed large numbers of political prisoners who had been incarcerated for many years.

On June 22, a Mojahedin member, Mehrdad Kalany, 35, was secretly executed in Tehran's Evin prison. He was first arrested in 1985 and underwent brutal torture. He was again arrested in early 1990 for meeting Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, the previous Special Representative of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Prior to his execution, Mr. Kalany was held in solitary confinement for one year.

His older brother, Massoud Kalany, is the senior anchorman for the Iranian Resistance's radio and television network which broadcasts programs into Iran.

In a letter secretly sent in March to the current Special Representative of the Commission on Human Rights, professor Maurice Danby Copithorne, Mehrdad wrote that he had been condemned to death in a 20-minute kangaroo court in January 1994. He also gave the names of many political prisoners who, like himself, were condemned to death, and appealed to the Special Representative for help. In the same letter, he wrote that prison officials had told him and other prisoners that their execution is postponed until after the completion of Mr. Copithorne's trip to Iran.

Mehrdad had also provided the Special Representative with the names of 11 political prisoners executed in Evin prison. They were: Ali Haj Qassemi, Rahman Sheikhi, Mohammad Salami, Taqi Soleimani, Alireza Shah-Abadi, Mohammad Rokni, Hamid-Reza Komeijani, Taher Gorgizadeh, Mohammad Dokht-Golshan, Mohammad Gharavi and Mohsen Qardash. He had added that many more political prisoners were secretly executed in Tehran and other cities.

The National Council of Resistance urges all international human rights organs to condemn the ruthless execution of defenseless prisoners many of whom have been incarcerated since 1981. The NCR also emphatically calls upon the Commission on Human Rights to refer the mullahs' abysmal human rights record to the United Nations Security Council for the adoption of practical and specific punishments against this medieval dictatorship.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran - Paris
July 22, 1996

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