Recording on 1988 Prison Massacre Exposes Early Fissure in the Islamic Republic of Iran + photos

 

Recording on 1988 Prison Massacre Exposes Early Fissure in the Islamic Republic of Iran

The recently released audio recording of Ayatollah Montazeri sharply denouncing the mass execution of political prisoners in the summer of 1988 has highlighted disagreements among prominent figures of the Islamic Republic that arose from the decision by Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s 1979 revolution, to put thousands of political dissidents to death.

Iranians who were born after the revolution’s turbulent first decade have also taken to social media to call for accountability even though they have no actual memory of the period.
In the audio file posted on Montazeri’s official website by his son on August 9, 2016 (Montazeri died in 2009), he described the executions, which were ordered by a special tribunal set up by Khomeini, and which took the lives of an estimated 4,000-5,000 people, as “the greatest crime in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

  

Montazeri, who was at the time being primed to become the country’s next supreme leader, told the tribunal—referred to as the “Death Committee” by the victims’ families—that he did not wish for Khomeini to be judged by history as a “bloodthirsty, cruel and brazen figure” for executing political prisoners en masse, and warned the tribunal’s members that they would be remembered as cruel criminals.

The meeting was described sixteen years ago in Montazeri’s memoir, but the recently released audio file has renewed debate on the decision to execute thousands of political dissidents without due process.

 https://www.mojahedin.org/newsen/50025