The 1988 massacre in Iran and the repetition risk of another catastrophe is a serious international concern. We need global support to to save the life of present political prisoners in Iran among them many women who are the first victims of such atrocities. This is call upon all to awaken consciousness throughout the world to help to prevent another catastrophe.

In Iran’s history, the summer of 1988 represents a time of genocide and massacre of 30,000 political prisoners. Yet to this day, human rights violations and arbitrary executions are continuing in Iran. Due to the appeasement policy and concessions towards Tehran’s mullahs, however, the international community has kept silent regarding this genocide.

The Iranian regime carried out the most ruthless massacre of political prisoners in Iran’s modern history, genocide by the definition, under the direct order of Khomeini. The purpose of this horrendous crime was to confront the regime’s defeats in its 8 year war with Iraq. This plan was in preparation for many years and implemented by the ‘Death Committee’. Currently, Khomeini’s successors have begun a new crime to once again rebuff the existing crisis of the regime. The Iranian regime’s judiciary chief has issued 1120 death sentences and due to international revelations and human rights condemnations, this issue is on hold anticipating Khamenei’s personal admission. (Nedaye Sabz Website, 9 August 2010 – The Nedaye Sabz Azadi reporter has learned the judiciary chief has written a secret letter to Ali Khamenei asking for permission to execute 1120 prisoners.)

Tehran and prisons like Evin and Gohardasht were the epicenter of this killing spree in 1988. The regime’s ‘Death Committee’ was obligated to employ this crime against more than 30,000 political prisoners in Iran’s prisons. The members of this committee are currently sitting in high posts in Ahmadinejad’s government. No prison, city or village was exempted from this massacre. The ‘Death Committee’ visited each and every prison and determined the fate of every single political prisoner and PMOI supporter. After 22 years, the dimension and mysteries of these horrific killings, neither in magnitude nor in manner, have not been revealed.

Thousands of families in Iran are still unaware of their loved ones destiny. The Iranian regime has never to this day informed the families of the thousands of political prisoners that were executed and buried in mass graves across the country. The prisoners’ names and specifications were all registered, each of them having received jail sentences. Many of the executed prisoners had finished serving their jail sentenced yet the regime had refused to release them. According to witnesses (who are ready to testify in any international courts) from inside the prisons, in some nights 350 prisoners were sent to the gallows. For example, the head of Mashhad’s Vakil Abad Prison said during a telephone call, “Those in Mashhad’s prison have been finished off.”

This unprecedented and horrendous killing spree took place under the written fatwa, daily orders and direct supervision of Khomeini himself. During the weeks that this massacre was taking place, all the Revolutionary Guards and prison officials were on high alert and other than just one telephone line provided for the ‘Death Committee’, there was no other means of communication. The IRGC members and prison guards and officials were forced to take part in the killings to have a part in the genocide, not allowing the chance to disclose the secrets to the outside world.

Only a limited number of prisoners who witnessed various scenes are alive today. A number of witnesses lost their sanity after witnessing such horrifying scenes, not being able to speak about the atrocities for months. Among these witnesses, a few have been able to depart from Iran and are currently living in Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Many of those executed were under the age of 18 and 58% were under the age of 30. Many families that are living in Camp Ashraf today have lost 3 to 10 members of their family during this massacre. The Shojaii family lost 12 of its loved ones.

Of course, the information gathered about this massacre is very incomplete and limited. The dimensions of this atrocity were so enormous that Montazeri, Khomeini’s successor and Iran’s 2nd religious figure at the time, wrote a letter to Khomeini objecting to this massacre. Becoming furious, Khomeini relieved him of his post and sentenced him to house arrest for the rest of his natural life. Ayatollah Montazeri passed away last year just a few days before the Ashura uprising in Iran. Currently, a region in Tehran containing a number of mass graves of the massacred is named Khavaran and has become a place of worship for the Iranian people. Political prisoner Ali Saremi, whose death sentence for visiting his son in Ashraf has been recently approved was arrested and tortured after appearing in Khavaran in South Tehran. There he paid tribute to the massacred and spoke in commemoration of the martyred victims.

Today, after 22 years and following the Iranian nation’s uprising during the last year, the eyes of the world has opened to just a small portion of the crimes committed against the Iranian people. An international campaign led by the Iranian Resistance, with political, parliamentary and legal figures in Europe and the US taking part, has called for an investigation of this crime against humanity and the trial of those involved in this genocide that is continuing to this very day. The current government posting officials of the Iranian regime are the torturers and those responsible for this vast crime. Witnesses of these crimes, inside or outside Iran, and especially in Ashraf, have announced their readiness to take part and testify in this regard in any court. Keeping the public opinion around the world informed of what actually occurred is a humanitarian duty to prevent the reoccurrence of genocide in Iran. It will without a doubt place the international community alongside the Iranian people that are victims to horrific oppression every day. Coinciding with international sanctions against the Iranian regime and the Revolutionary Guards, human rights condemnations are required to fulfill the pressure needed to bring change in Iran.

Azam Haj Heidari is an Iranian female prisoner of conscience who has witnessed women’s torture and ill-treatments in the Iranian Mullahs’ prisons. She is the author of a book called "The Price of Remaining Human", that was recently published in Europe.

The following is an excerpt from Azam Haj Heydari's book The Price of Remaining Human.

I think however much I speak of and write about Khoemeini’s ideology, that my father and brother were so devoted to, and however much I explain how this ideology makes a human so cold-hearted and emotionless to one’s family, wife and children, I still haven’t said enough. My father never showed any emotions or kindness. He believed if you give a child a kiss, it will become impudent. I don’t remember him kissing me or my sister even once. In those days, I didn’t understand the roots of these behaviors. I didn’t understand why my father and brother not only were so wretched, ruthless and senseless to me and my sister, they treated my poor mother in the same merciless manner, a mother who endured so much hardship for them. In those days I didn’t realize that misogyny, as the heart and soul of the Middle Ages-minded mullahs, is the source of such conduct.

My mother’s quick death was the result of such misogyny and lack of emotion.

My mother was complaining about pain in her chest for a few days. Although, as we all knew well enough that there would be no doctor until her sickness became serious, neither she herself nor us even thought of taking her to a physician. Until one day when she became seriously ill and fainted in the house yard. I ran to her and tried to help her up and take her inside, yet I couldn’t because I was too small. I ran inside and told my brother that mom had fainted in the yard. He carelessly said she had probably eaten some stale food or something, nothing to worry about. My father, who always thought of “going to heaven”, was reading the Quran at the time and continued to do so not giving a damn about my mother/acting completely indifferent to my mother’s condition. When I saw they had no reaction and my mother’s life or death literally meant nothing to them, I begged my neighbor’s wife for help. With the help of my older sister and after some delay, we took my mother to a hospital near our house. She had suffered a heart attack and needed to be transferred to a special heart hospital, yet we were too poor to afford the expenses. Therefore, my mother was hospitalized in that government hospital near our house which was short in special equipment for the treatment of heart patients. This woman, who had gone through much pain in her life, suffered two more heart attacks in the next 5 days and passed away. All this took place while my brother was financially well off and could easily afford her transfer to a special hospital and save his own mother’s life.

With my mother’s death, my sister and I lost our main supporter and pressures of life started to seriously increase on us. Our only companion that partially filled the void of my mother for us was my sister Mahin who was 11 years older than me.

The events and activities of the 1979 revolution in Iran were mainly led by the youths. They were the brave and fearless who were in the frontlines in every scene and sacrificing their blood day in and day out. After the victory of the revolution, this time these dauntless patriots were killed and massacred in prisons not by the Shah, rather by Khomeini and his henchmen. Everyone remembers September 8th, 1978, known as “Bloody Friday”, where Tehran witnessed a blood bath. I remember quite well that my father and brother on that day didn’t allow us, the younger members of the family, to go and join the protests, due to the fact that Shah’s regime had announced martial law and everyone knew that day was different from anything ever seen before.

On that day, I couldn’t stand staying inside my home. I was near my doorsteps crying and begging my father and brother to allow me to go and join the people. Yet they wouldn’t allow it, saying it was too dangerous and I would get killed. In those days, although I was a 20 year-old young woman with a diploma education, I didn’t dare to leave my house and do anything without their permission, always fearing the certain consequences. However, when I heard the news about people being killed, men and defenseless women with their children in their arms, and also seeing those who participated in that demonstration, I deeply regretted it. I kept on blaming myself for not going and waiting for my father and brother’s permission.

On that day, I felt something changing inside. From the next day, I started to participate in demonstrations without my father or brother’s permission.Of course, I still did this secretly, going and coming back in a way before they returned home. Little by little, I could feel my confidence build up by participating time and time again in public protests and meeting men and women who were ready to go the limits and pay the ultimate price for freedom. Growing up as an insulted woman under cruelty, I found all my suppressed wishes coming true in the revolution and its slogans. I thought I found the “Missing Link” of my life in the revolution, and the endless ranks of the people in the protests. All this was due to the fact that not only mentally, but also physically I was always literally held captive in my own home. My world was limited from my home to the school near our neighborhood.

The only profession that my social and family status allowed me to ever even think about was teaching. Therefore being a teacher, especially in a girls’ school where I wouldn’t be in contact with unfamiliar men, was allowed in my father’s opinion. Also, the income coming from this profession was a serious help for our poor family and my father naturally couldn’t oppose. Yet I do have to say that I personally was very fond of teaching because I loved the kids and I was always looking for ways to help them, especially those of poor families.

I came to realize how such a poverty, much deeper and more excruciating than I ever faced, was destroying the lives of millions in Iran. Such poverty and deprivation that first and foremost victimizes women and girls. I have chosen to fight against the dictators ruling my country for the freedom of such deprived children, and the people of my country as a whole. My struggle will continue till the day I will be able to bring freedom to my people.

Azam grew up in the slums of south Tehran. Her father, a religious fanatic, was a supporter of hard-line mullahs opposed to her education. Supported by her mother, an educated and clairvoyant woman, she obtained her diploma. At 13, she narrowly escaped a forced marriage with a mullah. In 1978, Azam, then 20, joined the People's Mojahedin. She became actively involved and met other oppressed women who had been involved in anti-Shah demonstrations. She spent seven years in prison, eight months of it squatting, blindfolded, in a cage. Tortured physically and psychologically, Azam refused to collaborate as her interrogators demanded and chose to resist. She fled her family to fight the fundamentalist mullahs and now she is residing in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, home to 3400 members of the Iranian Resistance.