Hundreds of signatories, including Nobel laureates, urged the United Nations Human Rights Council in an open letter on Thursday (January 27th) to launch an international investigation into the massacre of thousands of political prisoners in Iran in 1988.
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“
We believe it is high time for Michelle Bachelet's Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate the 1988 massacre
,” write the signatories, including organizations, former politicians and the UN, prominent former magistrates and jurists, as well as Nobel laureates such as the former President of East Timor José Ramos-Horta.
"Those responsible continue to enjoy impunity"
Designating the ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raïssi and the head of the Judicial Authority Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeï, they deplore that "
those responsible continue to enjoy impunity
", in this letter coordinated by the association "
Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Massacre in Iran
” (JVMI), based in London.
They say they fear this will "
encourage the Iranian authorities to commit further atrocities against dissidents and political prisoners
".
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According to human rights activists, thousands of people, including supporters or members of the People's Mojahedin, Marxist or leftist prisoners, were killed in prisons in Iran, without trial, on the orders of the Supreme Leader of the time, Ayatollah Khomeini. President Ebrahim Raisi has been accused by Amnesty International of having been a member of a "
Death Commission
" which carried out the executions, when he was deputy prosecutor of the Tehran Revolutionary Court.
“
Thousands of political prisoners who refused to give up their beliefs were executed
,” reads the open letter.
"
The victims were buried in mass graves scattered across the country
."
Last October, a group of Iranian opponents in exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), filed a complaint with the Scottish police for genocide and human rights violations against Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
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The NCRI, banned in Iran, is the political showcase of the People's Mojahedin (MEK in Persian), an armed opposition group to Islamic power and described as a "
terrorist sect
" by Tehran.
Ebrahim Raisi, who denied having been involved in these executions, is on the blacklist of Iranian officials sanctioned by Washington for “
complicity in serious human rights violations
”.