Published this week by the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, this list contains a small portion of 30,000 political prisoners executed in the second half of 1988 upon Khomeini's orders.
Underscoring in his letter to the Secretary General that this massacre was one of the most horrific crimes against humanity in post-World War II era, Mr. Rajavi urged him to set up an international fact-finding mission to investigate the clerical regime's atrocities, especially the 1988 massacre.
The NCR President said: After more than 10 years, the secrets of this horrible massacre have remained unknown. For in many Iranian prisons, all the detainees were executed and not even one was spared to reveal to the outside world the details of this great tragedy. Thousands of families are totally in the dark as to the fate of their children imprisoned at the time.
He added: The extent of the killings was such that Hossein Ali Montazeri, Khomeini's designated successor at the time, who had endorsed all of the atrocities perpetrated by the regime in the first ten years of being in power, protested this savage massacre when it was in its early stages. In a letter to Khomeini on July 31, 1988, he wrote: "... Executions of individuals who have already been sentenced by courts to a lesser sentence, without any precedent and without any new activities [by them], disregards all judicial standards and verdicts... As you presumably will insist on your decree, at least order that women not be executed, especially pregnant women. Ultimately, the execution of several thousand people in several days will not have positive repercussions and is not without mistakes."
The NCR President said: At the time of this horrific massacre, Khatami was the propaganda minister in which capacity he justified these crimes. Despite his rhetoric about "civil society," the "rule of law" and "dialogue between civilizations," neither then nor now as President has he ever uttered a word of criticism or condemnation as regards this hideous crime. Nor has he made any mention of the masterminds and perpetrators of this massacre. Quite to the contrary, he has lost no opportunity to heap praise on the likes of Assadollah Lajevardi, mullahs' Adolf Eichmann, and officials of the Intelligence Ministry, the "Revolutionary Prosecutor's Office," etc., who carried out this carnage. For he clearly sees the continuation of the theocratic state - and naturally his own presidency - conditional upon the persistence of these atrocities and backing those very criminals.
Mr. Rajavi stressed: The international community must compel this regime and its President to respond to such specific questions as the names and particulars of all of those massacred, the time, location, manner of their execution and the way they were executed, and to identify those responsible for and those carrying out this ghastly crime.
The NCR President added: The clerical regime has disregarded internationally recognized human rights principles and instruments and not paid any heed to 43 resolutions of condemnation by different organs of the United Nations. In this light, referring this medieval regime's record of human rights abuses to the United Nations Security Council for the adoption of specific and binding decisions is of paramount importance and urgency. The leaders of this medieval dictatorship must be brought before an international tribunal.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 16, 1999
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