Call To Investigate Iran’s 1980s ‘Genocide’ A Step Toward Ending ‘Cycle Of Impunity’

By Kian Sharifi

(RFE/RL) -- A UN expert has accused Iran of committing genocide in the 1980s, when thousands of political prisoners as well as members of religious and ethnic minorities were executed.

Javaid Rehman, the UN's special rapporteur on the rights situation in Iran, said in a July 22reportthat the summary and extrajudicial executions during 1981-82 and in 1988 amounted to crimes against humanity as well as genocide.

It is not the first time the mass executions have been described as genocide. But observers say Rehman's findings were an important step toward holding the Islamic republic accountable for its crimes.

"I think this may be one of the most important reports by a special rapporteur in recent years," Mahmud Amiri-Moghaddam, director of the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda.

"It brings attention to the early 1980s, when the Islamic republic committed huge crimes, but nothing was ever done about them," he added.

Human rights lawyers say Rehman's findings could lead to the UN launching an international probe into crimes committed during the first decade of the establishment of the Islamic republic in 1979.

'Systematic Patterns'

Iran's new clerical rulers executed and forcibly disappeared thousands of political opponents between June 1981 and March 1982, according to Rehman's report.

The victims were "arbitrarily detained and subjected to systematic patterns of enforced disappearance, torture and summary, arbitrary and extrajudicial executions on religiously motivated and vaguely defined charges," the report said.

Women, some reportedly raped before being killed, and hundreds of children were among those executed, the report said.

Most of the victims, the UN expert said, were members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), an exiled opposition group, as well as leftist parties and groups.

Rehman also drew attention to the executions and killings of members of the Baha'i community in the 1980s, when at least 200 followers were killed, according to rights groups.

Rehman said Baha'is -- Iran's largest non-Muslim minority -- were "targeted with genocidal intent and persecution."

During the summer of 1988, an estimated 5,000 prisoners were secretly executed in prisons. Many of the victims were members of the MKO, which had aligned with Baghdad during the devastating 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

Prisoners were sent to their deaths following interrogations that lasted just a few minutes, according to rights groups.

Former prison official Hamid Nouri in 2022becamethe first, and only, Iranian official to be convicted for his role in the executions, though he was ultimatelyreleasedas part of a prisoner swap between Stockholm and Tehran.

"The Iranian regime and its leaders should not be allowed to escape the consequences of their crimes against humanity and genocide," Rehman wrote in his report.

Rehman's findings were issued ahead of his mandate ending on July 31. He was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but does not speak on behalf of the UN.

Iran hasrejectedRehman's report and accused him of "serving the interests" of the MKO.

Accountability Mechanism

Rehman is not the first to accuse Tehran of committing genocide in the 1980s.

A 2011reportcommissioned by the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, a U.S.-based organization that promotes human rights in Iran, said the mass executions in 1988 amounted to genocide.*

But Rehman's allegations encompass the frenzy of executions that took place during the entire decade.

Gissou Nia, a human rights lawyer and director of the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council in Washington, says the special rapporteur's findings can set the stage for the UN to "establish some further inquiry that has a documentation and accountability function."

This is in line with Rehman's own recommendation for the establishment of an independent international investigative and accountability mechanism.

"What is incredibly important is that some of the perpetrators of the 1988 massacre continue to travel or have children in jurisdictions that do have the ability to prosecute atrocity crimes," Nia told RFE/RL.

"There really needs to be a push on national court systems that have obligations to prosecute extraterritorial crimes under universal jurisdiction," she added

Some of those implicated in the executions rose to powerful positions in the Islamic republic, including late President Ebrahim Raisi and former Justice Minister Mostafa Purmohammadi.

"These guys continue to enjoy the highest offices in the Islamic republic, and this is just unacceptable," Nia said. "The cycle of impunity really does need to end."

With reporting by Elaheh Ravanshad of RFE/RL's Radio Farda