A series of eyewitness accounts from men and women who survived the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners

The following video clips are a series of eyewitness accounts from men and women who survived the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, most of whom were affiliated with the main Iranian opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK).

International human rights organizations have called this massacre the greatest case of “crimes against humanity” since World War II.

The eyewitness accounts will reveal the barbarity of the Iranian regime in harrowing detail. At the same time, these testimonials will vividly demonstrate a generation’s unbreakable resolve to neither abandon their ideals nor submit to the hated mullahs despite the heavy cost.

Even after 33 years, families of the victims have not received death certificates or information on the manner in which their loved ones were murdered or what was done with their bodies.

These prisoners—none of whom had been sentenced to death—were executed based on a 1988 fatwa issued by the then-supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini.

“As the treacherous Monafeqin [Mojahedin] do not believe in Islam and what they say is out of deception and hypocrisy… and as they are waging war on God …. and as they are tied to the World Arrogance, and in light of their cowardly blows to the Islamic Republic since its inception, it is decreed that those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain steadfast in their support for the Monafeqin (Hypocrites) [Mojahedin (MEK)], are waging war on God and are condemned to execution,” Khomeini wrote. He urged the regime to carry out his order with “no mercy.”

“Death commissions,” were established in every province to identify prisoners who were suspected of remaining steadfast in their allegiance to the MEK and its ideals of a free, democratic Iran with a duly elected, secular government.

Tens of thousands of prisoners from Evin and Gohardasht prisons were brought before these “death commissions” and usually had their fates determined in just a few minutes. In one case, a 28-year-old man named Mahmoud was brought before a death squad around 7:00 p.m. on July 30, 1988, according to a witness. Mahmoud said he told the death commission “I am a supporter of the MEK.” Around 9:00 p.m., he and a large number of other prisoners were taken to the “death corridor,” where they were lined up and led into execution halls. Mahmoud was hanged that night.

Hamid Noury, a former assistant prosecutor in Iran, is now in Sweden facing criminal charges for his role in the 1988 “killing machine.”

Many of Iran’s current senior officials were also part of the 1988 massacre, according to witnesses. These include Iran’s new President Ebrahim Raisi, who was a member of the Commission in Tehran in 1988; prominent Sharia Judge Hossein Ali Nayyeri; Tehran Prosecutor Morteza Eshraqi; Deputy Minister of Intelligence Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi; and several criminal mullahs such as Ali Mobasheri, Mohammad Moghesiye, Esmail Shushtari, and Ali Razini.

Eyewitness Accounts

Asghar Mehdizadeh

Political prisoner: 1982 -1995; He spent 13 years in prison.

Prisons: Fooman, Rasht, Evin and Soomehsara, Gohardasht

I am Asghar Mehdizadeh, born in 1957 in the city of Soomehsara I was in Soomehsara, Fooman, Rasht, Evin, and Gohardasht prisons for 13 years.

I was arrested in Tehran in early 1982, along with MEK supporter Mohsen. Mohsen was martyred under torture because he always defended the aspirations of the MEK.

While I was under interrogation, I saw many brothers and sisters who were martyred under torture.

I then had my interrogation continued in solitary confinement in Gohardasht. After spending a year and a half there, many prisoners, including Farhad Komayi, who was my superior and was very much loved by the people of Soomehsara, were executed. I was sentenced to 15 years.

I was in Gohardasht from that date until the massacres of political prisoners in 1988.

The authorities had already paved the way to massacre all the prisoners defending the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, MEK, and their causes. One day, Mortazavi came into the ward, and the prisoners asked him to resolve a series of issues and problems.

In response to the prisoners’ demand, Mortazavi said:

“Because you do not cooperate with us and you are steadfast in your position as MEK, we have nothing to do with your ward anymore.”

“Your ward is on the prohibited list until we have the opportunity to deal with you all.” He added.

He did not come to our ward afterward and didn’t provide us with any facilities. We always had a disagreement concerning our exercise and the number of people who take part. Whenever we were collectively doing our daily exercise, this very person, Abbasi or so-called Hamid Nouri, used to order the prison guards to take us to solitary confinement, and after few days of beating and torturing us, we were then returned to our wards.

On two occasions, they took us to the gas room just because we were doing our exercise together. They then formed a tunnel shape, forming a line on both sides, involving Naserian, Davood Lashkari, and Hamid Abbasi along with some other Guards torturing us with sticks, cables, and other tools.

In the following days, I was told by Nasserian and Nouri that when you claim that you are MEK, you shouldn’t waiver. We shall deal with you in due course.

One day, Davood Lashkari, Faraj, and Hamid Nouri, who were all armed, gathered us and said “you who say that you are from MEK and do your mass prayers along with other things, whenever Khomeini issues his orders, we will line you along the wall and shoot you.”

It was Wednesday, August 26, when we had just finished our break in the prison yard; a guard came and called us to put our blindfolds on and come out. One of the guards led us to this very Hamid Nouri and started asking our name, the conviction and etc.…

We realized that his attitude was very different compared to the past. Whenever he used to ask us about the convictions, and we said that we were either the members or sympathizers of the MEK, he used to start insulting, using foul language, and beat us, but this time his attitude had changed a lot. When we returned to the ward, we talked about this incident. It was a question for us why he treated us this way. Considering his attitude, we noticed something had changed compared to the past. We used to have a 14inch TV set in our ward, but it was removed by a prison guard. The next day, which was Friday, Javad Shaitan was also lingering in the area during our break time. He was holding a radio, and he was also armed. He checked all over the area. I noticed this as a new factor which did not correlate with the previous situations.

It was Saturday, August 29, which was visiting time. We noticed nobody came to visit us. Gholam went to find out. He returned and said to us that “you have no visitors.” It was also the day to go shopping in the store. We had to provide the list of items we needed. We approached a prison guard to deliver our list. He said you couldn’t do your shopping either.

It was after 10 am that they came and took Alireza Ghazanfarpour Mughadam, who was from Karaj. He had been tried in Karaj. After half an hour, they came after Seyyed Mohammad Morevvej and took him away. It was around 12:30 noontime; through a small hole in the window, we were peeping outside. We saw that Dawood Lashkari was taking five blindfolded prisoners towards the yard. They were taken and stopped close to the lavatory. They then began doing ablution. They were giggling; on their way back, they stood in front of the wall. One of them was Mahshid Razaghi, who was tall. He punched into the wall with his fist. The prison guards then opened the yard gate and took him to the other side of the asphalted road, where there was a warehouse with a red gate. Prisoners were taken there.

It was very strange for us, and we were very curious. After an hour, we saw that about 20 guards came out of this warehouse. From that little hole in the ventilator, I saw that Khaki, Ali Bidandan, Abbasi, Lashkari, and others were busy talking…

Khaki and Ali Bidandan, were wearing T-shirts, and it was clear that they were sweating. When they came into the guards’ room, they were talking to each other, saying how courageous the prisoners were, and kept chanting slogans before their execution. Ali Bidandan and Abbasi were saying that these guys are hypocrites (Monafeq), they are evil, and should all be killed.

We then found out that the situation is far different from the past. The executions had already started. Until the evening of the same day, we saw about 20 prisoners, some of whom we knew, including Jafar Hashemi and Mahshid Razaghi. They were taken from there and executed in the same warehouse. In the evening, they brought an Ambulance and loaded the corpses, and drove away. At night we sat down and talked. Gholamreza Hassanpour was my superior. He said that the situation had changed, but nevertheless, we will go to court and defend our cause accordingly.

The next morning, the guard corps member, Lashkari, entered the ward ordered everyone to put the blindfold on and come out with all their belongings. We got ready to go out. I supervised the logistics. They had set up a line outside, and whoever wanted to pass them through, they asked his conviction and then began beating everyone.

On one occasion, I witnessed that Mohsen Kariminejad, who was an engineering student, when they asked what his conviction was? He loudly replied, “the Mojahedin Khalq Organization of Iran”. He was separated from the rest and taken to the so-called court.

In a number of times when they were transferring their belongings, they were being kept asking what their conviction was and kept beating them up. We were then taken to the opposite section (sub-section 7) where Dr. Farzin, Gholam, Massoud Hasto told us to start cleaning because our first task was to clean each sub-section we entered. Some halves an hour after we started cleaning, Dawood Lashkari came to our section and once he opened the door, he came across a corridor full of water. He became angry and asked, “Why did you pour so much water? All of you gather in the big hall. Once we went there, he came and started asking questions such as what is your name, the length of sentence you have received, and what was the conviction? When he came face to face with Massoud Hasto, he said to him, “you were saying that you were a supporter and member of the People’s Mojahedin, and now what do you have to say? He was very angry and resentful towards Massoud Hasto because every time he went to visit his mother and grandmother, he used to bring some news and as a result, he was beaten by Davood Lashkari, Hamid Abbasi, and Naserian.

They took us out and handed us over to Abbasi. We then went to the court’s corridor where the death committee was stationed there. They gave us a piece of paper and took us into a room where we filled in the form, and then we came and sat in the corridor. On this day I was there until late at night. That night, the same person, Hamid Abbasi lined us up and took us under ward 2, which was solitary confinement. He pushed us into solitary confinement. I started doing morse code with the adjacent cell. I noticed it was Dr. Farzin, who replied by telling me the story of going to the death room. In the middle of doing the morse code, it was Abbasi who opened the door and saw me. He began insulting me and took me to the opposite cell.

While in the new cell, I communicated with the next cell and I noticed that it was Massoud Hasto. We talked and told each other the story of the death committee.

The next morning, which was Monday the 10th, Hamid Abbasi came and shouted: “All of you, put the blindfold on and come out.” We put the blindfold on and came out. He lined us up and asked everyone for their names, details, the length of their sentence and the charges. Whoever said he was a supporter of the MEK, Hamid Abbasi would line them up and take them to the death committee. There was such mayhem that day. Prisoners were brought in from everywhere. I was sitting in the main corridor, whoever was brought in, I tried to tell them as much as I could that we witnessed the executions on Saturday. There were 15 groups of prisoners who were in batches of 10 to 15 people each who were taken to the death corridor. We did not know where they were being taken. A list of names and the people were handed over to Nasserian by Abbasi, who lined them up and then led them along with some other guards to the death committee.

I was there that day until 8 or 8:30, then taken to the same cell again. This saga continued for several days. On Saturday the 15th, the number of executions intensified. I saw very glorious scenes in terms of resistance and endurance. For example, Bayat, the head of the health department, fetched Nasser Mansouri from the health clinic. He was on a stretcher. Since he had been put in solitary confinement, in protest, he jumped out from a window on the third floor, and as a result, he became paralyzed. I thought that perhaps they might take him to the hospital for treatment, but I saw him being taken to the same death room. It did not take more than a minute or two. I saw him being returned and made him sit on the left-hand side of the corridor.

I was thinking about how they were going to carry out the execution. I didn’t know him, but others later said it was the heroic Nasser Mansouri. Or Mohammad Mamooli, who was taken to solitary confinement a few months ago because of his organizational affiliation. He had lost one of his legs. He was also taken to be executed. In these corridors, I witnessed the execution of many, and I met several of them, including Hadi Mohammad Nejad. Four members of his family had been martyred. In their last visits, his family had told him, “dear Hadi do something so that they wouldn’t execute you.” Hadi had replied that “I will try and will do my best because I want to live, but although I love life, I do not want to betray my ideals and goals and become like the Tudeh Party, whom the people despise.

On Saturday, he named most of the MEK members, including Jafar Khosravi, Hamidreza Hemmati and Qudrat Nouri, and several other MEK who were taken to be executed. It was at this time that Nasserian, who was after someone, came and asked Khairullah to rise up and said: “What were you doing, evil hypocrite? What were you saying? What were you leading the others to?”

He was handed over to another guard and taken to the Death Committee and then for execution. There and then, Nasserian called me and, after swearing at me, said: “You wouldn’t say anything, you cannot talk, what were you saying” and he continued humiliating me.

They then took us back to the same corridor of death. I was in the same corridors of death until 8 or 8:30, then I was taken to solitary confinement. It was on Monday afternoon when I heard the cell door opening; each prisoner was brought out and was dealt with. When they opened my cell door, I saw Naserian, Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, Hamid Nouri, and a few other guards.

Naserian furiously started shouting, insulting, and swearing, saying, “Put your blindfold on and come out”. After consulting with each other, they formed a kind of court-martial for me. I was handed over to two guards and taken to the cell where I was before. When I entered the room, I saw that in the middle of the room was a small, wide tablecloth; the food on the plate had dried up and became rotten. It was clear that it was in the middle of lunchtime when the last person had been taken away. One had put his watch on the sacks; one had put his rosary; one had bid farewell, saying that we are now going. Convey our greetings to the organization and to Massoud.

I heard that the sisters’ voices could be heard from downstairs. When I called the sisters, the guards quickly came in and insulted me and said, “Who were you calling?” They threw me in the bathroom and started beating me so that I fainted. When I became conscious, I dragged myself out. Next to my solitary cell, I saw the lights of few other cells were on. I called the first one through the window. He introduced himself. He was Hadi Mohammadnejad. I also told him my name. He said: “Asghar, they took me to the death hall. They raise the subject of interviews and intelligence cooperation; anyone who refuses would be executed the next day.

The next morning, two guards came after me and told me to get dressed. When I approached the death hall, I saw that there was a crowd of prisoners. They put us next to a prisoner. At one point, I asked the prisoner what was going on. He said, “Is it the first time you have come here? I said yes. He said, “Wait, they will take you first to show you the scene of the executions.” After a while, a guard came and said: you honeybees, rise. I saw 12 people got up and left while chanting slogans such as Long live MEK, O Hussein (referring to the grandson of Prophet Mohammad). As they were leaving, some others got up to go to the death hall. The guard shouted at them, saying that you are also overtaking each other for being executed. One of from the behind row replied: Yes, we do. Do you want to know why we overtake? The guard said, “Yes,” he said so long as you are not in our position, due to the fact that you are a guard corps member and we are MEK, you will never ever comprehend it anyhow.”

On this day I was witnessing new phenomena where all the MEK were standing tall and defending their ideals. Death was nothing to them, and they made a mockery of death. I was also gaining my spirit. Until they took several people, then the guard who had brought me called me and took me into the death hall. I did peep from my blindfold and saw many corpses in front of a stage there. I was kept some distance away from the stage, then uncovered my blindfold. I fainted. I said to myself, God, what is going on here? I saw that 12 MEK each were standing on a chair with a rope around their necks. While I was watching, the yelling of “Death to Khomeini, long live Rajavi, long live freedom” overwhelmed the area.

I witnessed that next to them were other bodies of the martyrs whose feet were grabbed by the guards and dragged out of the hall. When they were chanting slogans, the guards were bewildered. One of them, named Nasserian turned to Lashkari and Hamid Nouri and the guards shouting at them: “Why are you standing there? They are evil. They are hypocrites.”

After saying these words, he went towards those standing on the chairs with Nouri and Davood Lashkari and started kicking at the chairs under their feet. They kicked, and the prisoners were dropped hanging from the rope. After they kicked the fourth chair and removed the fourth person’s feet, the Mojahedin shouted louder and said, “hail to MEK, Allah Akbar”. It was at this point that I could no longer bear what I was witnessing. I did not understand anything anymore and fainted. After a while, I sensed that a guard was pouring some water on me. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the bodies were lingering on the ropes. They had already passed away.

The guard blindfolded me and brought me back to the same place where I was. I had already lost my psychological balance, and I was no longer the same person as Asghar. After the executions, we were brought back to Ward 13. We saw that a small number of MEK prisoners had remained. All of them had kept their promises and adhered to their aspirations. We were next in line to be executed. Nasserian and this very person, Hamid Nouri came to ward 13 and threatened us to say that the executions are still going on and should you continue to carry on supporting the organization, don’t imagine that we will not execute. We have some infiltrators among you, and we are in full control of everything.

Farideh Goodarzi

Political prisoner: 1982- 1988; she spent 6 years in prison.

Prison: Hamadan

I am Farideh Goudarzi, a supporter of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, MEK, who was arrested on this charge in 1983. I am one of the witnesses, survivors, and families of the martyrs of the 1988 massacre. Like all other political prisoners, I was taken to the torture chamber from the first hour of my arrest when I was arrested.

I was placed on a bed, and about 5-6 interrogation guards were above my head, and one of the guards was whipping my hands with a cable, and the other guard was slapping me. Ibrahim Raisi was standing in the corner of the room and was watching this process.

On the same day after my arrest, my brother Parviz Goodarzi was also arrested. He was shot in his arm and leg and was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards. Despite his injuries resulting from the shooting, he was taken to the torture chambers the next day and was whipped badly. According to most of the prisoners, whipping was one of the most horrible methods of torture in the regime’s prisons.

At the beginning of my arrest, I was in solitary confinement for about seven months. About two weeks after my arrest, my child was born in a very difficult situation. For about six and a half months, I raised my son in solitary confinement, which was very difficult.

Sometimes it can be said that in 48 hours, I only fed this baby with some water and a few sugar cubes. The solitary confinement section of the prison, I think, had about thirty cells. These cells were usually allocated to prisoners who were tortured for the day. All of these prisoners were sentenced to torture, long-term imprisonments, and execution by Ebrahim Raisi’s orders when he was the prosecutor of the Hamedan, 1981 to about 1984.

From night to morning, I usually heard the cries and the moaning of the prisoners being brought from the torture chamber. These prisoners were often beaten in the same cells in the same solitary confinement cell by interrogation guards.

I was in Hamedan prison from 1982 to November 1988 and was released after the massacre.

I witnessed a lot of Ebrahim Ra’isi’s crimes in Hamedan prison. Several of the MEK’s supporters in this photo were arrested in 1980-1981, charged with supporting the MEK. Their sentences lasted about 7-8 minutes. All of them were sentence and were hanged, with no exception. Several of them were hanged by the crane that was located in the yard of Hamadan prison.

One of the methods that the regime used to torture prisoners was the torture of their children. It was the middle of the night, about seven guards entered my solitary confinement section and began to inspect the cells. My 38-day old son and I were asleep when the guards entered my cell noisily and wildly. One of the guards grabbed my son from his sleep, lifted him about 50-60cm above the ground and threw him on the ground violently. Then began to inspect his clothes and began to peel them off. I began to yell and protest, but no one listened and continued their search. My 38-day old son was very terrified and was screaming. At the door of my cell, Ebrahim Raisi, accompanied by Mohammad Salimi, a religious authority, was witnessing and observing the whole event.

As I said, I was in prison at the time of the 1988 massacre. Prior to this, I was sentenced to death twice in 1983 in a court headed by Ebrahim Raisi, but due to the intervention of a delegation from Ayatollah Montazeri in Hamadan prison, my death sentences were both overturned, and I was sentenced to 20 years in prison. I was serving my sentence like other prisoners. My brother Parviz Goodarzi was also serving his prison term. In 1986, Khomeini was forced to accept the ceasefire and end the Iran-Iraq war. Two years prior to the acceptance of the ceasefire, my brother and four other MEK supporters named Martyrs Houshang Ahmadi, Mahmoud Mahmoudi, Ahmad Nazari,… were transferred to Shahrbani Prison. The head of the prison once told my brother that he would never see freedom again. It seemed there is a plan for the prisoners that nobody knew about it.

It was around July 29 that all prison visits were cut off. The radio and the TV were removed from the prison. No one was allowed to take an outdoor break. The ward was closed off. We were only eight women prisoners in the women’s ward at that time, but there were many more male prisoners. A committee was dispatched to Hamadan Prison from Evin prison. The interrogations started on August 1 in Hamadan Prison, which lasted for almost two weeks. But the executions began in Hamadan Prison on August 4, when the first martyrs, including my own brother Parviz Goodarzi and Masoumeh Mirzaei, Zahra Sharifi, and Arjang Ramaghi were hanged on Thursday, August 4, 1988. The executions in Hamadan prison took about one week, August 4 to August 11th or 12th. Those executed during this period in Hamadan Prison were all supporters of MEK. They, in fact, were all massacred. All the prisoners had all been tried before; they were all arrested during 1981 – 1982 and had sentence terms. Some had already finished their sentences but had not been released. I can tell you about Masoumeh Mirzaei, who had finished her prison term a year ago but was still held in prison. It was definitely a massacre.

Several MEK members, including Massoud Asgari, who was from Aligudarz, and Nasser Rabiee, who was from Boroujerd, had almost one month until their release, which never happened. Javad Torabi, who was released about 6-7 months before the massacre, was arrested again, brought back to prison, and was tried and sentenced again. I have to emphasize that all the prisoners whose trials took place between 1981 – 1984 were sentenced in courts in which Ebrahim Raisi was the prosecutor. All these prisoners were sentenced by Raisi, even those who were still serving their sentences, and were executed in August 1988.

As far as I know, about 50 supporters of the MEK were executed at this time, and I must say that I was the only one who survived the death sentence. I was in Hamadan prison, and my sentence was reduced by the intervention of a delegation sent by Ayatollah Montazeri. It can be said that I survived the execution.

After the massacre, from August to November (for a duration of more than three months), no family visits were allowed for prisoners. My own mother, I was told, used to travel from Kermanshah to Hamadan to visit. The prison guards took the money, food, clothing,… that the families had brought for the prisoners, but no visits were allowed.

After about three and a half months, they started calling the families and asked them to come to court almost from mid-November. In the court, each family was given a sack of clothing and prisoner belonging and told that their children had been executed. This was what my own mother had to face regarding the execution of my brother. Later, we received information that during those few nights, the prisoners were taken to Bagh-e Behesht in Hamedan, the site of the Hamedan cemetery, at around midnight, firing at the prisoners.

They had asked the cemetery employees to help out and had instructed them to say absolutely nothing about the killings to anyone. The prisoners were brought to the firing squad around midnight. The cemetery workers were forced to prepare burial spots for them, and the dead bodies were thrown into the ditch with no religious preparation or rituals. We found out about this information almost eight months after the massacre took place. Some families found out about the execution of their dear ones through the cemetery workers.

I should add that I was taken to the solitary confinement of the IRGC on August 7. This means that all the previous prisoners were transferred from that prison to the ward of the Revolutionary Guards in Hamedan. I remember that at around 8 and 9 o’clock at night, the prisoners were taken out from their cells, were blindfolded and were forced to sit in the prison corridor. Every prisoner was watched and guarded by a guard. There was a deafening silence in the corridor, and no one was allowed to talk or say anything. You could only hear the breathing sound of the other prisoners sitting next to you. This went on for about a week every night. I felt there are a lesser number of prisoners in the corridor. There were fewer movements. At the end of the week, I think there were only 7 or 8 prisoners left. The opening and closing of the cell doors were very few. I thought there were only 2-3 prisoners in the ward.

From the number of new prisoners in the ward, you could know that these were brought from other prisons.

A number of others were arrested; I remember their voices. There were several men serving their mandatory military services. They were yelling and saying, “What have we done”? They were very upset and angry. What I found out later was that these were people whom I think were on the battlefield or the people who had supported MEK. The regime had one thing in mind, more arrests and more executions. As I mentioned earlier, the solitary confinement cell was full of prisoners. In addition to the prisoners who were transferred from Hamedan prison to the IRGC prison, I have to say something about the families of those who were executed. These families were also executed emotionally alongside their dear ones silently. Many parents died in the first days after hearing the news of their children’s execution. Some passed away a few months later, including the parents of Martyrs Mahmoud Mahmoudi, Javad Torabi and Arjang Ramaghi. These parents, I remember, had strokes within the first months or years of hearing about their children. There were several parents who suffered from mental disorders after a while, including the mother of Hadi Hadian from Nahavand city.

Now I have another photo with me. This photo is of my brother Parviz Goodarzi, who was arrested in 1982. He spent almost six years in prison and was executed in the massacre of 1988. This is a photo of a number of martyrs, all of whom were serving their sentences. They were all executed in 1988. This is a photo of Zahra Sharifi, who was arrested in 1980 and imprisoned for seven years. One year had passed since her sentence, and she was still held in prison. She, too, was executed in 1988.

What I have to say is that as one of the survivors of those years and as one of the families of the martyrs of the massacre, I will never forgive and forget this crime against humanity. We call on the United Nations and the international community to recognize the massacre of 1988 as a crime against humanity and bring the perpetrators of this unimaginable crime to justice.

Akbar Samadi

Political prisoner: 1981- 1991; He spent 10 years in prison.

Prisons: Ghezelhesar, Evin, Gohardasht

My name is Akbar Samadi, and I was born in 1966. I was arrested at Keshavarz Boulevard in Tehran in August 1981 when the regime’s security forces brought in their forces extensively to surround the area.

After a few months, my identity was exposed by defectors at Evin and I was subjected to interrogation. In the end, I was sentenced to 10 years in prison. I spent this time in Ghezelhesar, Evin, and Gohardasht prisons.

Of course, I was not the only person who was arrested when they were under 18 years of age. There were a large number of people who were arrested at around the same age, and some of them were even executed at that young age.

During the 1988 massacre, I was sent to the Death Corridor six times. During this time, I witnessed many things. In the Death Committee, there were Nayyeri, the Sharia Judge, Eshraqi, the Prosecutor General, Ebrahim Raisi, the Deputy Prosecutor, and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the representative of the Ministry of Intelligence.

When a prisoner came in, they would ask the prisoner their charge, and on the basis of the charge, they would issue a sentence. At that time, they would tell us that this was a “Pardoning Committee.” And even when I entered the room, they said that we are the Pardoning Committee and we want to assess the prisoners’ situation. They asked my name, my father’s name, date of birth, and charge. When I exited the room, there was a seating area, and Reza Felani was sitting beside me. He asked me what is happening. I told him I don’t know what’s going on, but if I were to guess, I’d say that they are either going to execute us all or free us all; because the regime had accepted the ceasefire.

At this time, Ebrahim Raisi called me in again and took me to a room, and started talking to me. In reality, Ebrahim Raisi was the deputy Tehran Prosecutor, and he was there to ensure that no one would escape execution. He tried his utmost to cast as wide a net as possible for the executions, and if somehow Prosecutor Morteza Eshraqi had a different opinion about someone, Raisi would reject it.

When I went into the Death Corridor, I came across prisoners who were sitting there and waiting for execution. Of course, we didn’t know that the executions were taking place, until the afternoon, when one of the colleagues who had met the Death Committee told me the details and asked me to pass on the news to the other prisoners. There, I told others that I have a message that I want you to listen to. We placed watchers on both ends of the Death Corridor to warn us if someone came. Then I delivered the message from my colleague, that the executions had started on July 27, 1988, in Evin and on July 30 in Gohardasht, at first prisoners from Mashhad and those with life-in-prison sentences were taken to be executed; this is a Death Committee, and any one of us who is taken to the Death Committee would ultimately be taken to the end of the Corridor; there they will give us three pieces of paper, which include a letter to the family, power of attorney, and a will. And then, people would be taken to the Gohardasht Hosseynieh where they would be hanged.

The reaction of the prisoners … Mohammad Reza Shahid Eftekhar was sitting across from me. Mohammad Reza was a university student and if I’m not mistaken, he was studying at the Polytechnic University. He said that the revolution requires sacrifices and we have to make that sacrifice. Behzad Fath Zanjani was sitting beside Mohammad Reza, and he said that the weight of the revolution is carried by certain people at every era and this time it’s our turn to carry the weight.

Since the letter of my execution sentence was left behind in the room that Raisi had called me in, I was at the Death Corridor until the end of the night. At around 11PM, Hamid Abbasi, who is being tried as Hamid Noury currently, read out the names of 14 people. My name was not among them, neither among the people who were there nor among the people who had been executed. He went over the names once again. He went and brought the list of the names of those executed, but he still did not find my name. Then he said: “For now, you just go with them.”

Meanwhile, for example, he read out the name of Morteza Yazdi. Morteza was in Cell 15 of Ward 3. He had been executed by mistake. In particular, Hamid Noury had read out his name wrong and they had taken him to be executed. He was executed in place of Seyyed Morteza Yazdi. Seyyed Morteza Yazdi himself was also eventually executed during that massacre.

Despite the arrests that took place in 1981 and the fact that all the prisoners were already serving their sentences, many of the people who were the same age as me (were executed), like for example Assadollah Sattar Nejad, who was serving a 15 year prison sentence and was executed in Gohardasht, or Mohsen Abdol-Hossein Rouzbehani who was serving a 10 year prison sentence and was also executed in Gohardasht, or Heydar Sadeqi Tirabadi.

In subsequent days, when we passed on the news of executions, many of the others didn’t believe it because we were all sentenced to prison terms and we were seven years in, and it was hard to believe that the regime is carrying out the executions this easily. That is why the reactions were different. Some were saying that people are being transferred to other prisons. At this time, when some people got the news in different places, sometimes when this disbelief turned into certainty, some of them had heart attacks. The prison was empty, and there was nobody else there. We were only a few who survived and in the end, they transferred us to another ward.

There, we went over what had happened and listed the names of people who were executed. In reality, anyone who was no longer amongst us was considered to have been executed. On August 6, 1988, I was in Cell 2 of Ward 2. We used Morse Code to communicate the names of those executed. We would get the names from each cell. In the cell below us was Mojtaba Akhgar. We communicated the names through Morse Code. The number of the names was so large that after a while each of us who was using Morse Code was replaced by another person because we would get so exhausted.

Those who ran the prison and those who were members of the IRGC and ward guards tried their utmost to increase the number of executions in any way possible. For this reason, they kept everybody in the dark and they tried their utmost to provoke prisoners so the prisoners would get mad and react, which would, in turn, become grounds for execution.

Nasserian would come every night to get the names and charges. He would draw up a list. He gave the list to Hamid Abbasi. The next morning, Abbasi would give the names to the IRGC guards and they would take the prisoners to the Death Corridor.

In the Death Corridor, we were blindfolded and would sit on the ground one meter apart. They would read the names of 10 to 15 prisoners each time, every 15 to 20 minutes, and the prisoners would be taken away. There were many instances when all the Death Committee members, regardless of whether they had given the sentence or not, would visit and monitor and implement the execution sentences in the execution chamber. I myself witnessed this coming and going several times at least when Nayyeri, Raisi, Eshraqi, Shoushtari, and Pourmohammadi went to Hosseynieh to implement the executions.

In the Death Corridor, Nasserian would tell the IRGC guards, “go and call them, we want to get started.” All of the guards in the prison clinic, the kitchen, services, and security were dispatched. They wanted to force them to implement the executions so that later on none of these guards would be able to expose this crime. As I said, the magnitude of the crime was so huge that no one was left in prison.

One of the aspects of this massacre, regardless of the fact that it was happening inside the prisons, was the unawareness of the families outside. The families were kept in the dark about the situation inside prison for a long time because visits were suspended. Later, many mothers and fathers who found out about the execution of their kids literally died from the news or had heart attacks. Gholam Reza Mashhadi Ebrahim was an only child. He was executed even though he had a heart illness. Hossein Afkhan had lost his mental balance. Incidentally, he was executed because they wanted to get rid of the evidence of crimes and torture (on his body). Ali Haqverdi, during his imprisonment, was kept standing for about seven days straight. He was tortured in that condition and also suffered a concussion. And after that, he suffered from complications in his head. At some point, I was responsible for taking care of Ali Haqverdi. But even Ali Haqverdi, who faced this severe and serious illness, was executed during the massacre.

Or, Hamid Reza Ardestani. His feet were hit with cables so brutally during interrogations that they were so badly infected that his muscles and small toes were eventually severed.

In order to erase all evidence and traces of torture, all these people were executed.

To date, families do not even know where their kids have been buried. And this is a crime that is ongoing. Meaning that it’s not restricted to 1988. Many of the mothers spent years in Khavaran Cemetery and various burial sites to look for the remains of their loved ones. Not only have they not made any progress but they have also been harassed, pressured and tortured, and even imprisoned by the Khomeini and Khamenei regimes.

For us who survived the massacre, life after the execution of our friends was really hard. We had spent years with them and we were together for a long time. In a normal family life, you’d study, work, and conduct other activities, and maybe you’d spend several hours of the remainder of the 24 hours at home with friends or family or sisters and brothers and such. But we spent the entire 24 hours with each other in various conditions. We were at each other’s side during good times and bad times. So, we couldn’t forget it. It was hard to live without them. Also, these people wanted nothing for themselves. Their only desire was freedom and prosperity. I myself was born in a relatively modest neighborhood in southern Tehran. What motivated me to join the MEK and to support it was to pursue a better life for myself, my friends, my family, and others. We wanted nothing else. We wanted people to live in peace. But despite the fact that all these people were in prison for seven years, not only did they not reach their goal but they also sacrificed their lives. So, what remained for us was to follow in their footsteps and continue their path.

And now, in a word, this identity and this ideal is summarized in the pursuit of freedom and prosperity for the people. And naturally, it’s nothing that can be given away or exchanged with something else in a deal with others. And if anyone wants to exploit this situation for selfish reasons the reality is that they have not and will not be successful. No one can exploit the Call for Justice Movement to achieve a higher status for themselves personally.

Hossein Farsi

Political prisoner: 1981-1993; He spent 12 years in prison.

Prisons: Evin, Ghezelhesar, and Gohardasht

My name is Hossein Farsi. I was a political prisoner from 1981 to 1993. I was held in Evin, Ghezelhesar and Gohardasht prisons. I was arrested on charges of supporting the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, MEK and conducting political activities with respect to the MEK. In 1988, when the massacre happened, I was in Gohardasht Prison and spent four days in and around the Death Committee and the Death Corridor. In order to make clear how this massacre happened and that it didn’t just take place overnight, please allow me to go back so I can give a more detailed account.

Since early 1986, two years before the massacre, tensions were rising between the prisoners and the wardens. The warden constantly carried out suppression and the prisoners resisted with high morale. The resistance happened in various forms, from hunger strikes to refusing visits, among other acts.

One of the sources of tension between the warden and the prisoner was the issue of what the prisoners’ charge was said to be. This meant that prisoners who supported the MEK couldn’t use the word “Mojahed” to describe their charge, or the term “Mojahedin.” They were asked to use the Khomeini-made term “Monafeqin.”

From 1987, a year before the massacre, this war had started between the prisoners and the regime. And we were insistent that we were supporters of the Mojahedin. They would severely torture prisoners. They tortured anyone who used the word “Mojahedin,” with the goal of forcing them to back down from using that term.

Several months before the massacre, some transfers and relocations took place. In particular, in Gohardasht prison, based on the positions undertaken by the prisoners, the prisoners were categorized into groups. I myself was transferred to Gohardasht in early 1988. One of the gruesome scenes that happened in Gohardasht and I should point out here was the way we entered the prison.

We were taken to Gohardasht in February 1988. It was night. And it was really cold. We were blindfolded and handcuffed on the bus. When we got off the bus, they removed our handcuffs but left the blindfolds. As soon as we moved, we noticed that they had created a “tunnel” made up of 50-60 IRGC guards lined up on each side. As we walked between the two rows, they would hit us with sticks, batons, cables, chains and whatever they were equipped with. After going through this, we were taken to the third floor. It was an empty ward and it was extremely cold.

There, they ordered us to remove all our clothing. There were 180 to 190 of us. We resisted. They beat us severely to take off our clothing by force. And even after, the IRGC guards struck the naked bodies with cables, sticks, iron bars and anything they had in their hands. They were incredibly violent. It was a gruesome and painful experience. One of the people who commanded the others and was present at the scene was an IRGC personnel named Hamid Noury. Another one was the deputy head of Gohardasht Prison named Davoud Lashkari.

This stage passed. They had categorized prisoners based on their political positions. We were in a ward where the common denominator among all of us was that we had all been freed before but arrested again. This tension continued until July.

By the end of July, we noticed an abnormal situation. The state-run newspapers that we used to receive every day, like Keyhan, Ettelaat and Jomhouri Eslami, were no longer delivered. We were also allowed to go into the prison yard for an hour every day. But that was also suspended.

We used to buy basic necessities from the prison shop. But that shop was suddenly closed.

We did not have a television set. But the wards beside us did. We communicated through Morse Code with them and found out that their TV sets were taken away. We noticed that the situation is becoming highly unusual.

On July 29 at night, they called us and asked questions from each of us. They asked about our charges. Unlike the previous days, when we responded that our charge was supporting the “Mojahedin,” they did not react angrily or resort to violence. At times, they would ask: Do you want to be pardoned?

We returned to the ward and felt that the situation is unusual. Their conduct was strange. But we never imagined the things that would happen in the following days.

On July 30, in the morning, they called us and they took us out of the ward in a hurry. We were blindfolded and taken to a three-storey administration building of the prison. In the middle was the visiting hall. The lower floor was an office area where the prosecutor’s office for prison supervision was located. We were sitting there blindfolded. I saw an unusual thing, which was very weird and unique. Two IRGC guards with Uzi machine guns were seated by the door. This was very weird. Guns were banned from inside the prison. After a few hours, I was called into the room. When I removed my blindfold in the room, I saw two mullahs and a person in plainclothes. The person in plainclothes there was Morteza Eshraqi, the Tehran Revolutionary Prosecutor. The mullah in the middle was Hossein-Ali Nayyeri, who is currently one of the judges of the Supreme Court. Sitting beside Nayyeri was a young mullah whom I did not recognize at the time. He was Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who was one of the officials of the Intelligence Ministry and a member of the Death Committee. Later on, he became the regime’s Minister of Justice and Minister of Interior.

These were members of the Death Committee. All three had to sign the death sentence. After questions about the prisoners’ identity, they asked what are you charged with? Anyone who responded by saying that they were charged with supporting the MEK, their death sentence was signed and nothing else was asked.

The criteria for the Death Committee, as Khomeini had written in his fatwa was that any MEK supporters insisting on their stance are considered Mohareb or “enemy of God” and they must be executed. So, the criterion of the Death Committee was to ask are the prisoners insisting on their stance or not. Using the term “Mojahedin” means that they are still insistent on their position and still accept all of the MEK’s political and ideological positions. And that is why they were sentenced to death. Just to make it clear how the criterion was in fact the simple use of the term Mojahedin, I want to mention an extraordinary example.

We had a friend who was not arrested for supporting the MEK. There was a group called Arman-e Mostazafin. None of the members of the group, or its leadership, were executed. They were in prison for several years and then freed. This particular prisoner was Majid Pour Ramezan and was from the city of Shiraz. Amidst this massacre, before he was taken to the Death Committee, when they asked him what his charge is, even though he was originally charged with supporting Arman-e Mostazafin, he said he is a supporter of the MEK. So, they took him, just like our other friends, in front of the Death Committee. There, they asked him what his charge is. He said I am a supporter of the MEK. When they took him to the Death Corridor, they talked to him several times and asked him wasn’t your charge supporting Arman-e Mostazafin? He said, yes originally, but now I am a supporter of the Mojahedin, MEK. Simply because of using the term “Mojahedin,” he was executed. So, this is the extent to which the criterion for execution was supporting the Mojahedin and defending the positions of the MEK, which was defending the ideal of freedom for the people. This was the only criterion, and not anything else.

I personally witnessed that on July 30, August 12, and August 13, when group after group of prisoner names were read out, and they were lined up in the middle of the Death Corridor, with blindfolds. They were taken to the area of the executions, which was a large hall at the end of Gohardasht Prison and it was called Hosseynieh.

The entire crime was based on a fatwa issued by Khomeini and his serious war against the MEK. In reality, Khomeini resorted to genocide and a crime that was unprecedented in Iran’s history. In the Death Corridor and in those scenes, many things happened. But what has stayed with me is the high spirit and morale of the friends who left and became martyrs. Among them was Hossein Niakan who was my cellmate for several years.

On August 13, Hossein Niakan was sitting in front of me. While we all knew that the executions were going on, Hossein was singing the Freedom Anthem and was in good spirits. He was smiling and repeating “O’ Freedom after we are gone, shine your light on our graves.”

My other friend, Dariush Hanifeh Pour Ziba, was sitting beside me. He was reciting poems and singing inspirational songs.

The most beautiful thing that Dariush said that day was a poem, which ended with the following words:

O’ morning of freedom

If your Sun needs to feed on a sea of blood

If your spring and gardens blossom out of the wounds on our corpses

And if the anthem of peace and freedom should echo from our blood-drenched cries

We welcome your steps on our warmblood any time

Come, our hearts are the carpet on your path

I want to say that it was with this spirit and attitude that these heroes persisted in their ideal for pursuing people’s freedom and they heroically accepted to be hanged while they said no to the enemy and to Khomeini.

Mahmoud Royaei

Political prisoner: 1981-1991; He spent 10 years in prison.

Prison: Evin, Ghezelhesar, and Gohardasht

My name is Mahmoud Royaei. I spent 10 years in the prisons of Ghezelhesar, Gohardasht, and Evin. During the massacre, I was at Gohardasht Prison. It was around January at Gohardasht when we noticed some relocations and particular confrontations. These confrontations led to the segregation of prisoners. It was the initial measure for the massacre. At the time, no one was aware. At that time, someone named Davoud Lashkari, who was in charge of the prison’s security, called in the prisoners one by one and asked them their identities, the sentence length, and charge.

We would say that we are charged with supporting the MEK. Anyone who said this would be held. A small few were separated. We did not know what the objective was. In this segregation and categorization, since they also separated other non-MEK and Marxist prisoners, we thought the objective is to categorize prisoners on the basis of the length of the term and the type of the charge.

Bu on the same day, we heard from the open sliver underneath the door that Davoud Lashkari was talking on the phone and saying that “the rotten eggs have been separated.” We realized that there is a project going on and an important measure is being carried out. But for us it wasn’t important because they had imposed so much pressure on us, and it was January and February of 1988, so we thought what else could they do that they haven’t done yet during these past 6 or 7 years.

Then they put everyone in the ward. They categorized various “crimes” in other words. On June 1, they transferred about 150 prisoners from Gohardasht to Evin Prison. They selected the prisoners from various wards, from each ward 10 or 15 or 20. About 150 were taken to Evin. And from Evin those who had already completed their sentences, and were known as “Melli-kesh” were brought over to Gohardasht Prison.

Well, this system of relocations and categorization were the first measures for the massacre. The massacre was triggered in February 1988. At the same time, this type of categorization and transfers were being carried out in a similar way in all other counties. In the counties, they also did something else, which was since they wanted to eradicate prisoners, which was an extraordinary thing to do, and since these towns were small and the news should not spread quickly because it would trigger rebellion, the prisoners were sent to exile in various cities under various pretexts.

In the northern prisons, like Sari and Ghaemshahr, and Babol, the prisoners were relocated. Some from Mashhad were taken to Tehran and other cities. Some from Zahedan were taken to various other cities. So, the relocations had thus started. On March 21, 1988, about 100 prisoners from Kermanshah were relocated to Tehran. They were brought to the ward on the floor below us. We did not know what’s going on.

They had told them that because of the war and missiles and bombings, we are taking you to a safer location. This is while the prisoners were separated to be executed. The prisoners knew. On that day, March 21, five months before the start of the massacre, one of the prisoners who were relocated, named Parviz Mojahed Nia, saw his family when the bus had stopped (on route to Tehran), the family asks where are they taking you, and he had told them that they are taking us all to be executed because they said we are going to seal your fate soon.

This was a series of events that happened in various cities. The way they dealt with the prisoners, relocations, and categorization, I do not want to go into further details now. In many counties, they had told prisoners that we will seal your fate, the Imam has said that we have to come to a final solution about you and we don’t want to have prisoners.

This kind of talk was heard in various cities and various wards months before the start of the massacre. The head of the Prisons Organization at the time was Majid Ansari. On May 24, 1988, a decree was announced in which Esmail Shoushtari replaced him as the head of the Prisons Organization. Later we found out that Majid Ansari was not deemed to be useful for the Death Committee, but Esmail Shoushtari participated in the Death Committee as the head of the Prisons Organization, from May 24 onwards. This was how the massacre started.

On July 19, the day after the massacre, a number of friends who were serving their sentences were executed. The relocation was being carried out in Evin. A large number were taken to solitary confinement. They were given interrogation and question forms. They did not know at the time, but it was later found out that this was in preparation for the executions.

So, there is absolutely no doubt that the massacre was being prepared and the stage was being set from six months before. I have conducted extensive research about this and published it in a series of books, five volumes called “The Sun Planters.” Also about the statistics about the number of those executed in the massacre.

On the basis of the estimates that I have gathered over the past 30 years, I have personally come to the conclusion that the 30,000 figure that has been declared is very cautious. The reason is that in northern and northwestern cities, in many cities, we do not have any statistics. These were cities where the Intelligence Ministry had strong control over, not just during the massacre, but both before and after it. there, on a nightly basis, the prisoners and people were killed, and no one could complain.

Now that Khomeini had issued a specific decree to execute all those MEK who insisted on their position, these regime authorities were extremely active. From Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Naqadeh, Salmas, western cities until the south, like Khuzestan, we do not have too much information. We have some names and information from the “UNESCO” Prison and Ahvaz Prison, which relate to the crimes committed by Avai.

But in total, the information about this region is extremely scant. This also includes information about Vakil Abad and Adel Abad prisons, and large prisons like Isfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz, and Rasht. Our statistics about these is extremely scant. From Mashhad Prison, which was a large prison and a large number of executions took place there, we have some names, which shows that in many of the wards in Mashhad there were no survivors to give their accounts. This also happened in other cities, like Qom. One of the friends in Qom who was previously being held in Qom said that there was only one survivor in Qom whose fate is unknown.

So, in some prisons, there were absolutely no survivors to give their testimonies about the events. So, that is why the number of executions are much much higher than we think. Many Iranian researchers, like Dr. Maleki, said at the time that the number are more than 30,000. The Deputy Intelligence Minister at the time, Reza Malek, also gave a specific number, he said 33,700. He said more than 30,000 are related to the MEK. He also gave some statistics about mass graves. So, we can’t know the real figures. Until the regime is overthrown we cannot know.

Another reason why I’m saying it was more than 30,000 is that the issue of the executions in 1988 is the greatest and most significant red line for the regime. Anyone who talked about it would be arrested. The families of victims were banned from saying that their loved ones were executed. If the families held ceremonies and talked about this they would be taken away. They pressured the families.

The father of one of the martyrs, Reza Zand, was subjected to a mock execution because he said he wanted to hold a ceremony. By applying these pressures, the regime prevented the flow of information about the martyrs. In the circumstances where information was so hard to obtain, the MEK gathered the names, identities, and particulars of 5,000 of the 1988 martyrs particularly tied to the MEK. There were also some others affiliated with other groups who were executed starting on August 27.

But the MEK published the names of 5,000 members who were executed during the 1988 massacre. And this 5,000 is indicative of tens of thousands of executed members. Everyone knows that there are many families who are still not talking about it.

Another issue is the reason for the massacre. These people were executed for one reason. They were executed because they defended the ideal and conduct of the MEK, for defending the ideal of freedom. This is what Khomeini did not want. That is why Khomeini explicitly wrote that all those who remain loyal to the PMOI’s stance should be executed. And when Ardebili asked him what does this means, does it mean those who are sentenced to execution? What about those in counties? Khomeini responded by saying that all prisoners at whatever stage, if they are committed to the MEK, meaning that they accept the ideas of the MEK, at whatever stage, must be executed. Then he said don’t hesitate or have any doubts, and be firm, and conduct more executions.

There are so many instances that I have, dear friends who I personally met, who said that they will not back down from the path and conduct of Massoud Rajavi and the MEK. On August 3, 1988, when Mohammad Reza Shahid Eftekhar found out that they will execute him, he said that the tree of a revolutionary is fed by blood, and what other blood than ours? He considered this as an opportunity. Many imprisoned sisters and brothers, despite the love they had for life, they really loved life, but they chose at this stage to sacrifice themselves for the people. They said that this blood will invigorate a generation, the impact of which we see in the Call for Justice Movement.

There were even some who had other beliefs, but while in prison they began to admire the MEK and started supporting them. Majid Pour Ramezan was asked by Nayyeri, your charge is supporting Arman-e Mostazafin, they have brought you here by mistake. Nayyeri wanted to send him back. But Majid said no I am a MEK supporter. Majid knew that he would be executed. Then said to him your charge is something else and they wanted to send him back. He said whatever my charge is I am a Mojahed. Then he loudly chanted “Long live the MEK.” Many did the same.

The friends from Mashhad declared themselves as devotees of Massoud on the first day. And these people enthusiastically kissed the noose. Out of this blood, we see today that the Call for Justice Movement has been reinvigorated in all cities. Today, the generation that was not even born those days are now the flag bearers of this movement and are calling for justice for the blood that was shed.

Parvin Pour Eqbali

Political prisoner: 1981-1991; She spent 10 years in prison.

Prison: Evin

Hello to all. My name is Parvin Pouregbal. I am one of the survivors of the 1988 massacre. I was a 15-year-old student when I was arrested in 1981. My only charge was supporting the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, MEK in school, distributing leaflets, and selling the MEK weekly publication. I was transferred to Evin Prison. I was freed after a year and a half. But in 1986 I was arrested again because I wanted to join the National Liberation Army. In total, I spent six years in Evin Prison. I was released in 1991. During the massacre, I was being held at Hall #2 of Evin Prison. During the massacre, when 30,000 political prisoners, 95% of whom were women and men of the MEK. Of course, I have to say all of the female political prisoners who were executed in the 1988 massacre were all affiliated with the MEK.

If I were to give a brief summary of that time, in July 1988, the executions began. At the time, we had no way of communicating with the outside. The only communication was visiting, which occurred every month or biweekly. There were no telephones, so we couldn’t communicate with families through the telephone. We could only communicate through visits. But in July, all visits were banned. All the prison doors were closed and there was no traffic to the outside. Even the television sets were taken away from all the cells. So, all communication with the outside was cut off. Every day they would call prisoners from the wards and take them away.

We noticed that none of them were coming back. We had no idea what’s going on. I also have to say that everyone that at the time was in our ward and was taken away for the massacre all had explicit prison sentences. Many of them were people who had survived the 1981 hangings. Many people were executed in 1981 and 1982. They had received sentences. Many had survived tortures of “Vahed Maskouni” or “residential unit”. They had survived physical torture and had signs of torture on their bodies, like Azadeh Tabib and Ashraf Fadayi. They had spent 6 or seven years in prison by that time. Some had completed their sentences. For example, Farahnaz Zarfchi and Mojgan Sorbi. Farahnaz Zarfchi didn’t even have a sentence anymore. Mojgan Sorbi had completed her sentence. Ashraf Fadayi had finished her sentence in 1988. Her family was waiting to see their daughter freed after seven years.

They took me on August 4, 1988, for the Death Committee. When they called us in it was in the afternoon of August 4. We were several prisoners. When they took us to Ward 209, there was a room full of folders and cigarette smoke. There were several people sitting behind the desk. We recognized Raisi, Reyshahri, Eshraqi, Pourmohammadi, Zamani, the Intelligence Ministry spokesman. They only wanted us to abandon our beliefs and call the MEK whatever they wanted us to call them. In principle, they wanted the prisoner to surrender. Anyone who did not surrender and did not do what they wanted was executed.

Of course, at the time, we did not know this. We only saw the comings and goings, to the extent that I saw it during the time I was outside the courtroom. Then, they took us to solitary confinement and then to “Darbasteh.” When they returned to the ward, of course, they took us to “Darbasteh” and solitary confinement. Then, after two months, in October or November time frame, when the first person, the family of Azadeh Tabib, came to see their other daughter, the daughter said that Azadeh has been executed and they gave them the duffel bag. That was when we found out that all of the friends were executed, so whoever was missing was executed.

At the time, in the women’s ward, as far as I could witness, discounting the solitary confinement and “Darbasteh” cells which we had no information about, there were 3 halls, hall #1 on the floor below all of the women were executed, no survivors; Hall #3 which was the ward above us, all of the MEK members were executed. A number of non-religious prisoners survived. In our ward, two rooms were completely emptied. Each room contained 25-30 people. Two of them were completely emptied. They took a lot of people from other rooms. I can’t give exact statistics but I knew that a ward and a hall were completely emptied. In another hall, half of the prisoners were taken away to be executed. And in our ward, at least two rooms were completely emptied and all executed. In other rooms, for example, half were taken away, or a number of them were taken away.

The prisoners who were there included arrested minors, students, university students, housewives with kids, mothers, husbands, and wives who were executed together. They were all people who chose to commit to the ideal of freedom. When in the kangaroo courts, henchman Raisi, who has become the regime’s president, offered them to surrender, the prisoners refused to surrender. They declared a historic and loud ‘no’ to the henchman and sacrificed their lives for the ideal of freedom. This path is continuing by younger generations. We, the MEK, and the young people of Iran will continue this path until the regime is overthrown.

Hamid Noury, or Hamid Abbasi, who was an assistant deputy prosecutor at the time in Evin and Gohardasht prisons, is now on trial. He is, of course, a minor henchman in the regime who was involved in the crimes and massacre of political prisoners. Of course, this is a very important event. But the international community must break its silence with regards to this crime against humanity, the mass murder of 1988, where more than 30,000 female and male political prisoners were hanged. The leaders of the regime, including Raisi, must be put on trial so that the truth can be known. The regime is currently trying, and has made all efforts, to erase all traces of the crime. It has destroyed mass graves in various cities, like Ahvaz and Tabriz, and it has built roads and buildings on top, in order to eradicate the evidence. We, of course, will not let it do this, and it cannot get away from accountability and justice.

Mohammad Reza Zand

Political prisoner: 1981-1992; He spent 11 years in prison.

Prisons: Evin, Ghezelhesar, and Gohardasht

My name is Mohammad Reza Zand. I was a student and arrested on July 28, 1981, for supporting the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, MEK. I spent 11 years in Evin, Ghezelhesar, and Gohardasht prisons. During the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, 90% of whom were members and supporters of the MEK, I was at Gohardasht Prison. I have to provide an explanation here. When we say 30,000 and the MEK, we are talking about Khomeini’s religious decree against all MEK who insisted on their position and used the term Mojahed, MEK.

The term Mojahed precisely meant freedom for the people and secondly gaining the trust of the people. Over the years, the Iranian people had seen a lot of betrayals. But this time, the MEK decided to sacrifice everything they have to regain the trust of the people who had been particularly betrayed by Khomeini during the 1979 revolution.

That is how these 30,000 people stood up for their position in defense of the name MEK. Of course, the crime that was committed, and I witnessed it, I can talk about a small portion of it in Gohardasht Prison.

It was July 28, 1988, when we had gathered in protest of the suspension of delivery of newspapers. An IRGC guard came and took me and 10-11 other people away. They took us out and started beating us. There, my rib and one of my toes were broken. Others were also severely beaten. They asked us what our charge is. And we said supporting the MEK. They sent us inside and said that we’ll come back on Saturday. This was on Thursday, July 28, 1988, at night.

I should also say that during a year-long period, we and other prisoners were taken and asked about charges and the length of the terms. A categorization was taking place. Prisoners were taken away, like those with lifetime sentences. Transfers were taking place. In these transfers, for example, they had told Massoud Moqbeli that we are going to seal your fate. So, we were expecting something, but that was it.

That night passed. On Saturday morning, July 30, at around 8 or 9 in the morning, I and others, including my brother Reza Zand, were sitting in the ward hall. An IRGC guard came and read out about 20 names. They read out my brother’s name instead of mine. My brother had a rosary and a ring. He gave them to me and said to keep these as souvenirs. I became anxious and said why? Keep them yourself. I was speculating that they would take him to solitary confinement because of the protest that we had carried out. He said that I don’t know why I feel this way but I don’t think we’re going to see each other again. Sometime before that, when he had seen our mother, he had repeated the exact same thing.

I didn’t accept his souvenirs. Another friend kept them, and Reza left. After they took them, we lost contact with them. Of course, something would happen that strengthened our suspicious that executions were taking place. On August 4, through Morse Code, we communicated with Dariush Hanifeh Pour Ziba. They had not taken him for executions yet. We found out this way that the executions had begun, and he said that the regime is conducting a massacre against everyone. Dariush, of course, was martyred himself and remained committed to his vow.

It was August 6 … On August 4, the entire ward that we were in was emptied. We were taken to rooms called “Darbasteh” until August 6, when they read out our names and took us to the Death Committee. We used to sit in the Death Corridor in front of the room where the Death Committee was. The Death Committee included Hossein-Ali Nayyeri, the chief of the committee, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the deputy Intelligence Minister representative, Eshraqi, and Ebrahim Raisi, who represented the deputy prosecutor. This was the four-member committee. Now, some days it was three of them, some days four. But this committee, whether in Gohardasht or Evin, was consisted of these four people.

When they took me to the Death Committee, Mohammad Mir Moqisseh took me there, who was the prison warden under the pseudonym Nasserian. He was also the deputy prosecutor. Before sitting on the chair and removing my blindfold, he said that we have executed your brother, and if you don’t accept our terms, we will execute you too. I was shocked. Then, Nayyeri asked me to do you know why you’re here? I immediately asked why did you execute my brother? He was serving a 10-year sentence and had completed seven years of it. Nayyeri changed the subject and said what is your position yourself? I said I don’t have an opinion, answer my question.

At any rate, they sent me out. We were sitting there, when I saw a number of other friends were taken there, including Nasser Mansouri, whose spinal cord was injured. They wanted him to expose the activists’ organization in prison and he had refused. So, he had thrown himself off the second floor and his back was broken. He was taken there on a stretcher. He was taken to the Death Committee on the same stretcher and then taken to be executed. There, I saw Hamid Noury, who was the chief of staff of Nasserian; his name was Hamid Abbasi. Davoud Lashkari was in charge of prison security. I saw that Hamid Noury and him coming from the end of the hall, which we later found out led to the Hosseynieh or the place of executions, with a bunch of blindfolds in his hands. After he returned, Lashkari went and Hamid Noury read out names, and they would not read the entire name but only the first name and the name of the father, so that no one would find out what’s going on.

After some people went, including Mahmoud Zaki, I asked him what did you say? He said I told them I am a member of the MEK. Mahmoud was taken and executed. The executions had started on July 30. The first group that was executed included those who had been transferred there from Mashhad Prison. They had all defended the MEK. All of them had said that we would defend the MEK and Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. The majority of the prisoners would say we are MEK or they would stress that we are members of the Massoud Rajavi organization. The executions happened on this basis and nothing else.

The position of a MEK member would equal execution. Mojahed, as I said, was synonymous with two other words, including freedom for the Iranian people, and secondly gaining the trust of the people betrayed by Khomeini during the 1979 revolution. Someone had to treat this wound once and for all, by paying the price for it, which was the blood of 30,000 MEK members. This price was paid.

At any rate, this Death Committee executed thousands of people in Evin and Gohardasht prisons. In other prisons, other Death Committees did the same. Today, Raisi has become the regime’s president. This was someone who according to international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, must be tried for crimes against humanity. That is why I hope one day the people of Iran can witness the trial and punishment of all the perpetrators and decision-makers of the 1988 massacre and all the regime’s mass murders against the MEK over the past 40 years. I hope that in particular Khamenei and Raisi would be put on trial soon.

Majid Saheb Jam

Political prisoner: 1982-1999; He spent 17 years in prison.

Prisons: Evin, Ghezelhesar, and Gohardasht

My name is Majid Saheb Jam. I am a former political prisoner and supporter of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, MEK. I spent 17 years in Evin, Ghezelhesar, Joint Committee, and Gohardasht prisons. During the massacre of political prisoners in 1988, I was at Gohardasht Prison and in the Death Corridor. I witnessed the crimes committed by the clerical regime’s agents and in this particular instance Hamid Noury, or Hamid Abbasi.

In 1982, I was imprisoned for supporting the MEK. The initial ruling sentenced me to 12 years in prison. Trials that lasted 2 to 3 minutes, including the trial that was headed by Nayyeri, who was the chair of the Death Committee in 1988. In these so-called trials, we did not have anything to say. We either said yes or no. And in 2, 3, 4 minutes, the so-called trial was over.

The 1988 massacre, as public opinion knows about it today, was prepared years before. There are evidence and documents that in 1985 and 1986, and especially 1987, the groundwork was being prepared for the start of executions in 1988 by categorizing prisoners that they thought are committed to the MEK on the basis of the sentence and the activities he/she had conducted.

It should also be reminded that those who survived in Iranian prisons had very light cases, like selling publications or distributing leaflets, or participating in assemblies and gatherings of the organization. So, if anyone had conducted activities beyond this would not even live to serve the remainder of his/her sentence. So, the majority of the MEK in prison had conducted political activities, activities that today are said to be peaceful, to promote their programs and political ideas.

With that being said, in 1988, after the initial preparations by the Intelligence Ministry and the IRGC’s intelligence, and headed by Khomeini and his office and son, simultaneous with the end of the war, they wanted to, in their own words, also conclude the dossier of prisons. How would they do conclude the prison dossier? Well, the only way they know-how. They could not conclude the prison dossier by opening prison doors and freeing prisoners, but by massacring the prisoners. So, as they themselves would say, this is how they wanted to conclude the issue. But they did not succeed.

With respect to the executions and massacre of 1988, I want to underscore this important point, which I referred to before. The issue of the identity of political forces and especially the MEK was the source of confrontation since day one with Khomeini. The use of the word “Mojahed.” As everyone knows, even today in the official documentation of the clerical regime, there is nothing known as the “Mojahedin,” or MEK but rather the “Monafeqin.” So, our identity was questioned since day one. The identity of the MEK as a political and religious group, with progressive ideas, could not and would not be accepted by them, something that has continued to this very day. And one of the conclusions of this rejection of our identity surfaced in the massacre.

People were executed for using the term “MEK.” So, the references to “anti-revolutionaries,” “spies,” “Mohareb” (enemy of God), “Molhed” (heretic), and anything in the mullahs’ lexicon, were used politically to cast doubt on the MEK’s identity. This has a very long story, which I will not delve into, but it is extremely important, and the core issue of the massacre was the declaration of the imprisoned MEK members about accepting the identity of a Mojahed or do you still accept the MEK as a political organization. The yes or no answer to this question would seal the individual’s fate.

At the time of arrest, some of the prisoners were minors, under the age of 18. These were MEK supporters that spent years in prison. I can name a few among my own friends. For example, Ardalan Darafarin. They were arrested when they were under the age of 18 and executed later in the massacre. Afshin Memaran, Mehran Samadi, Baqar Qandehari, and many other individuals who would be considered minors, arrested under the age of 18, and later executed in the massacre. Or, it was said that the Pardon Committee had said that we have executed only one person from each family, and we tried not to execute more than one person from each family. This was also a complete lie.

Again, I remember friends like martyred Hossein Mirzai, whose sister was executed in Hamedan. Saeed and Arfa Jebreili, two brothers, who spent many years with me, were both executed. Ahmad and Hossein Razaghi, from a well-known family who lived in northern Tehran, and many people knew them, were brothers who were executed. Asghar and Hamid Khezri, and many other families who lost two or three of their children in the massacre.

A very sad and painful scene that I personally cannot ever forget is the scene of transferring two of my friends, supporters of the MEK, one of whom had received a brain injury in prison and suffered from extreme epilepsy. On the day of execution, his epilepsy acted up in a bad way. His name was Kaveh Nassara. He was executed in that condition. In order to take him to the execution hall, another prisoner was holding him up so he wouldn’t fall. The Khomeini regime and henchman Raisi and Hamid Noury and others involved took such people to their execution. I witnessed another one of my friends in the Death Corridor. He was Nasser Mansouri. He had a spinal cord injury and was laying on a stretcher. He couldn’t even move. They brought him from the prison clinic to the Death Committee, the so-called trial set up by Khomeini and Raisi and Hamid Noury participated in it.

Then they took him on a stretcher to the Death Corridor, and at that time he was roughly in front of me. Lying a stretcher as he suffered from a spinal cord injury. How can a person with a spinal cord injury can even be physically executed? This cruelty was applied against civilians and prisoners. Behind these words was a sea of suffering and blood, grief, and resistance and perseverance. All those who have healthy hands, heads, and legs, and hear what I’m saying must know that a MEK member persevered until the last moment even as he was suffering from a spinal cord injury, or a brain injury, or epilepsy, and with the chant of “Long live freedom,” “Hail to Rajavi.” This is how they showed their commitment and vow, and died.

In the end, I want to name a few of my friends with whom I spent the last hours in the ward. These are very important reminders of Iran’s history. We have to have these reminders about the history of Iran’s political struggle every day so that we can take a step further toward realizing freedom and against religious fascism and religious tyranny.

In a banner used in all protests around the world, there are pictures of several of my friends. I said goodbye to them at the last moment and they were committed to their vow. And, of course, those who died were the most courageous and most dignified children of the Iranian people. Those who survived, in whatever manner, must know and they know, and the world should also know, that there is a qualitative difference between those who survived and those who courageously and bravely persevered and remained committed to defending the sacred term “Mojahed” and stayed loyal to this vow.

Morteza Borz Abadi, Ebrahim Akbari Sefat, Bijan Keshavarz, my friend from northern Iran who promised to take me to his house in Rasht but unfortunately it didn’t happen; Hadi Saberi, Hossein Mahjoubi, Ma’boud Sokouti, Bahman Moussapour, Mohsen Mohammad Baqer, who was also incidentally physically disabled from birth and had appeared in one of the famous movies directed by Mr. Beyzai, which I think was called “Stranger and fog.” People can watch the movie now and they will see this kid who was later hanged as a supporter of the MEK during the massacre.

He remained committed to his vow and ideal as an artist. He had a cane which he used to walk in the Death Corridor and went to the execution hall. Dariush Hanifeh Pour, Shirang Dorostkar, and my other friends, who today their mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers, and relatives are gathering in front of the criminal Hamid Noury’s trial and also other courts to take place in the future, and they are standing there and are reminding everyone about the vows of these strugglers for the freedom of the Iranian people. I hope that we would also have the ability and competence to remain committed to our own vows until the end of this path. Thank you to all of you.

Hassan Zarif Nazarian

Political prisoner: 1981-1993; He spent 12 years in prison.

Prisons: Jamshidia, Evin, and Ghazal Hesar

Hello, I am Hassan Zarif Nazarian. I was in Jamshidia, Evin, and Ghazal Hesar prisons for 12 years. I was in Evin prison at the time of the 1988 massacre. I have had many interviews about the 1988 massacre in the past years, and I have covered some aspects of this issue, but today I wanted to point out the less-discussed aspect in this interview.

What has been said about the 1988 massacre in various interviews by various witnesses are about Evin and Gohardasht prisons only and their observations in the death corridor in Gohardasht and the central hall in these two prisons. However, not much is said about other prisons in the country, including Vakilabad in Mashhad, Adelabad, Karun, UNESCO, and various prisons in the country, and what happened in those prisons remains a secret.

Apart from this, there are other issues. In addition to the massacre and killing of those inside the prisons, others were also subjected to this massacre and were executed at the same time. Among them were prisoners who had been released more or less one or two years before the massacre. They were also arrested again and executed.

Anyway, first I want to talk about two lists.

One list is a list of 170 types of tortures and inhumane acts exercised and perpetrated in the regime’s judiciary and prisons. The other list includes 877 people who were massacred in Evin and Gohardasht prisons during the 1988 massacre. Of course, I will explain how and under what conditions these lists were prepared and why they are not complete.

Following the massacre, it was decided that Mr. Galido Pohl, the UN Special Representative, would visit Iran’s prisons. At this time, I thought that if we could get some of the names of those executed to Galido Pohl (appointed Special Rapporteur of the Commission of Human Rights on Iran in 1986), he could have a better hand in inquiring about the case. Why? Because at the time, Khomeini’s regime entirely denied the massacre. They did not agree to enter any discussion about the massacre, so I tried to secretly compile these lists with my cellmates including, Hossein Farsi, Mehrdad Kavousi, and Alireza Taheri-Lou. Out of the two prisons of Evin and Gohardasht, there were only about 250 people left who were not executed, and we were all put in one ward. We tried to collect the statistics of those executed in those wards by referring to people who had remained from different wards.

As for Evin Prison, especially in ward 1, where I was kept previously, there were 175 of us in that ward, of whom only 15 survived the massacre. There was a ward called the “Life-sentenced” ward, which used to have about 160 prisoners. Of these, 8 or 9 survived. Ward 2 of Evin that is, of the total lower and upper sections of that ward, which had about 250 political prisoners, about 15 survived. From the upper ward no.4, which had about 150 political prisoners, eight survived. Hall 6 of the ward called “School,” 104 political prisoners were kept, 100 were executed, and only four survived. Hall 4 of the school had about 40 political prisoners, of whom only six survived.

Of course, there were two other wards in Evin that were reserved for female political prisoners. They were about 300 plus. We did not contact them, but their relatives, such as their brothers or spouse, who were in our wards, could get information about their sisters or spouse in meetings they had inside prison. We found that most of those political prisoners in the women’s wards were executed, and only a few remained.

Anyway, this was the general information that I had about Evin Prison. The main problem was compiling a list of prisoners who were executed in Gohardasht prison. Let me mention here that we had 14 wards in Evin prison, added by two wards which were solitary confinements. From all these 16 wards, we were only able to collect the names of those executed in five wards only and did not have access to the rest.

Gohardasht prison had 24 wards. We do not know how populated those wards were and whether they were full? There was not enough information available. But we knew it had three general wards and 21 Solitary confinement wards. From the survivors of these wards, we were only able to collect the names of 9 wards. That is, we do not know how many were in other wards. For example, some political prisoners were kept as exiles from Karaj Prison. Some had been sent into exile from Mashhad Prison to Gohar Dasht prison. There was a section called the sub-section of the Mashhadis (prisoners sent to exile from Mashhad Prison). Sub-section called Kermanshahis (prisoners sent to exile from Kermanshah Prison). We do not know whether there were others in exiles from other cities.

That is why I wanted to stress that the executions extended to vast areas in prisons, that we could only get the name of 877 prisoners.

When I was released from prison, I was able to find the names of about 306 other prisoners. I wrote a memoir called “The Secret to perseverance,” in which I have covered all of these issues. But I just wanted to point out that the 1988 massacre is not just about those who were in prison at the time and were executed. There were those who were released, soldiers who were arrested, and these were among the executions. What was the cause? The reason was that the Khomeini regime (henchmen) had, before that, told us repeatedly that the leadership and the hierarchy of all Islamic Republic opposition groups had been destroyed and had no leadership. There is only the Mojahedin organization, which has leadership and has kept its structure. And that is why they are considered a threat to the Islamic Republic. They said that we would not allow the Mojahedin to have a foothold in the country. Released prisoners, incarcerated prisoners, and their families are all considered a threat and must be demolished.

These measures were not only related to August 1988. It had started before that. That is why I want to emphasize that the 1988 massacre had nothing to do with the Eternal Lights offensive. The regime’s goal was to destroy the Mojahedin and their organization because they were considered to be an existential threat. That’s why the massacre did not end and has continued. The massacre is not over. After the 1988 massacre, many, for instance, the “Ayaran” group in Karaj, were executed under the guise of ordinary prisoners. And this continues.

All in all, I would like to say that the 1988 massacre was to destroy a generation, to demolish the foothold of the Mojahedin Organization.

That is why I want to say that the dimensions of this massacre remain hidden. We still do not have all the news of the massacre from the prisons scattered all over the country. We only know that there are mass graves that are going through changes by the regime. They want to eliminate the traces of their crimes. But the list of the victims will be completed before this regime will be gone. The Iranian Resistance has managed to compile the names and particulars of some 5,000 political prisoners executed during the 1988 massacre. Let’s see how many more names we will succeed to gather in the path of shedding light on the dimensions of this massacre.

Hassan Ashrafian

Political prisoner: 1983-1995; He spent 12 years in prison.

Prisons: Evin, Gohardasht

I am Hassan Ashrafian, who became familiar with the MEK after the anti-monarchical revolution in 1978, and I started my activities with the MEK in Abadan in 1979.

In 1981, I went to Tehran and took part in the demonstration of June 20, 1981, where I witnessed how the regime suppressed the peaceful demonstrations of the MEK and the people. After that, we saw that the regime started mass arrests and executions in prisons. I was arrested in January 1983 in Tehran, and at the same night that I was arrested, they created scenes of mock execution for me.

The next morning, I was transferred to Evin Prison, where I was tortured and severely flogged with an electric cable. This torture lasted for several days and every time for several hours.

During the time I was being interrogated and tortured, I witnessed the torture of my MEK brothers and sisters and other prisoners who were fighting against Khomeini. Seeing and hearing those scenes was so much more painful than the torture I endured.

I was transferred to Gohardasht Prison in 1986.

There were several windows in our ward on which iron shutters were installed. We turned some of the shutters up so we could see a little bit outside. I and a number of my cellmates saw Daoud Lashgari, who was in prison uniform and armed, along with a number of plainclothesmen and two Afghans who were themselves prisoners in Gohardasht. The two Afghans were carrying a wheelbarrow with very thick ropes on it.

But we did not know what was really going on because we did not know the details. In general, we knew that a change had taken place and there was news, but we did not know the details.

It was First of August that Davood Lashgari, with his side-arm, while he never used to have his gun with him when he came to the ward, suddenly entered the ward with 20 guards, and each guard stood in front of a cell so that no one could go out or have any movement.

About half an hour later, after they left, the guards came and shouted that all prisoners with a sentence of over 10 years to be blindfolded and leave the ward.

They divided the prisoners into three parts. One part was transferred to solitary confinement, some were returned to sub-cells and others who were 52-53 people were returned to the ward.

From the next day, through contacts with each other, via morse coding and other signals, we realized that the regime had formed a committee which they called ‘pardon committee, which was in fact the death committee.

The first group to be executed on July 30 were prisoners exiled from Mashhad to Tehran and Gohardasht Prison. They executed the first group there on that day. Prisoners in another ward witnessed their bodies being carried.

A few days later, we learned that several members of our ward that had been taken to solitary confinement or side-ward were executed.

Prisoners were taken to a room before being executed and given a few minutes to write their wills. And they wrote their names on their feet or parts of their bodies so they could be identified after their martyrdom. Some of them wrote their wills and some of them did not write anything because they did not trust them, but as far as we know, their words in their wills were to send their greetings to Massoud (Rajavi) and say that we stood to the end. On the night of the third of August, we were walking in the corridor of the ward when we heard the sound of a vehicle outside the ward. We went to the same window that I said before and looked outside. The scene we saw was very horrible to us. We saw two Benz trucks.

I saw transparent plastic bags in which there were corpses. I saw that scene but I did not want to talk about it. I told Abolhassan, look and see what these plastics are. He said they are the corpses of the prisoners. Hearing that, I had a very severe headache and sat down on the floor. I knew what it was, but I did not dare to say it. These scenes continued from July 30 to August 16 in Gohardasht prison, and we heard the news of the martyrdom of a number of our friends every day and did not know what to do.

Heydar Yousefi

Political prisoner: 1983-1991; He spent 8 years in prison.

Prison: Gohardasht

My name is Heydar Yousefi, a member of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). I was arrested twice and was sentenced to a total of 12 years in prison. During the massacre of political prisoners, the situation was totally different in my opinion than the circumstances before the 1988 massacre. And the difference, in my view, was that the 30,000 people who were hanged in the summer of 1988 were all tried in show trials on the basis of the reactionary and suppressive laws of the Khomeini regime. They were sentenced to various prison terms. Some of them were executed.

A large number of them had received various sentences. Some of these prisoners were even arrested during the political phase but since they had refused to commit to avoiding political activities after their potential release, they were kept in prison. After the regime opened fire on protesters and started arrests and torture of the people, these prisoners were tried and sentenced. Over the past 33 years, two things have really upset me regarding the 1988 massacre.

These things have become nightmares for me and have always haunted me. As long as these two things have not been resolved and those who ordered and executed this crime have not been brought to justice, I will not experience calm. During the period that I was in that cell, I found out that the imprisoned PMOI/MEK sisters from Kermanshah had been transferred to Gohardasht Prison. We later discovered that this was done for the purposes of the massacre. The other issue that I want to point out is regarding one of my own cellmates, named Mohsen Mohammad Baqer. He was born disabled from the waist down.

He wore special shoes with braces that went up to his waist, and he walked with the help of two crutches. In the prison, we affectionately referred to him as the “Iron Man.”Mohsen Mohammad Baqer was a PMOI/MEK member who really loved the organization, his people, and his freedom. He was enthusiastic, happy, and full of energy. Wherever he was, the people around him would become full of rebellion and energy. He used to make everyone happy and excited.

He had values and was full of love and joy for his cellmates, and his high spirit was truly contagious. Even though I had been witness to many crimes committed by this regime, but I still thought that the regime would spare people like Mohsen Mohammad Baqer or Nasser Mansouri from execution. So, I went to Mohsen Mohammad Baqer and started to talk to him. I told him if you are freed and goes outside, please relay to the PMOI/MEK the information about the attack on my house and the martyrdom of my brother. But, sadly, I later found out that the henchman and criminal Raisi and the Death Committee did not spare Mohsen Mohammad Baqer who was disabled from birth. He was executed in that condition.

We also communicated with the floor below, which contained male prisoners from Kermanshah who were transferred there. We communicated through the pipes with two or three of the Marxists there, who said that all the members and supporters of the PMOI/MEK were taken to the Death Committee, and only one of them returned; everyone else was executed.

I also want to mention Gholamreza Kia Koushiri and Mohsen Ghanimati who survived the execution but when they found out that everyone else was executed, they knocked on the cell door and insisted to prison authorities their commitment to the PMOI/MEK. They were executed. So, in summary, I hope that one day soon we can bring all the criminals who ordered and implemented this horrific crime and genocide, this war crime against humanity, to justice with the help of the international community, and avenge the blood that was shed. And I hope that we can bring freedom to our people and prosperity to our country. We hope for that day and wish you all the best.

Mohammad Sarkhaili

Political prisoner: 1984-1993; He spent 9 years in prison.

Prisons: Evin and Gohardasht

I am Mohammad Sar Kheyli, born in 1955 in Abadan. I was imprisoned in Evin and Gohardasht prisons from 1984 to 1993. In 1988, the criminal Khomeini executed 30,000 MEK prisoners and executed them according to his explicit fatwa. The victims were the ones who stood firm on their positions, their beliefs, and their MEK identity. This fact was also acknowledged by the death commission in the presence of Khomeini’s deputy, Mr. Montazeri.

I was imprisoned in Evin Prison from 1986-1987. At that time, Lajevardi was replaced by Razini as the new head of the prison. Razini had chosen a deputy named Ebrahim Raisi, who is now the president of the regime.

My brother Gholamreza Sarkhaili and my cousin Abbas Sahraei were arrested in 1981-1982, and we didn’t think they might be executed. But Raisi sentenced them to death.

Many of my cellmates who were my very close friends, such as Mahmoud Bani Najarian, Muzaffar Izadi, Kourosh Khavarian, Hamid Hosseini, and Afshin Baradaran Ghasemi, who was only 16 years old, were executed. One of my friends that I remember a lot is Ahmad Moghimi Zanjani.

Ahmad Moghimi Zanjani had received more than 6,000 lashes. I do not know how to say this because I witnessed it myself and saw his feet. There was nothing left of his feet.

There was no toe left, no nails, no flesh. It was just a piece of bone with skin on it that had been taken from his leg. But even with that condition, Raisi sentenced him to death in 1985.

In September 1983, I was in Evin Prison, ward one. There, Hamid Nouri, who is currently on trial in Sweden, was our prison guard. I know him very well.

He repeatedly pulled me out of my cell and tried to force me to repent and then work for him.

In 1984, I was interrogated in Branch 3 of Evin Prison. The senior interrogator of Branch 3 was a person named Mohammad Moghisei or Nasserian who everyone knows to be a blood-thirsty of the MEK during the massacres.

He had two deputies, one of whom was a person named Daneshjoo and the other was Hamid Nouri. These three people were torturing me.

Let me tell you how I was tortured: I was tied to the bed; my legs and arms were tied tightly.

Nasserian was sitting on my back, pulling my neck back and inserting a blanket into my throat, and squeezing my throat. Meanwhile, another interrogator was flogging me. I was thinking to myself at that time what they want to do to me and they definitely want to kill me here. Whenever I got to the point that I was suffocating, Nasserian lifted his hands from my throat, and I felt the pain of the whip all over my body and I started screaming very annoyingly. After that, I was forced to run on the sand that had been poured on the ground and I was whipped at the same time. Every sand pierced into my feet like a nail, and at that time I felt severe pain and did not know what to do in that situation.

In the period of the massacre in 1988, I was in Gohardasht prison and in ward 1.

Nasserian and Hamid Nouri, who was his deputy, and Lashkari, who was the head of the prison at the time, came to our ward and said that the ward should be emptied. Then they took about 60 of us.

They gathered us in the yard and took us to the jihad ward and asked us the same three questions they used to ask in the court. We did not know at the time that this was a court, but it really was a court. Out of the 60 people they took, 45 were executed and we never saw them again.

Another example in Evin Prison: There were 34 of us who had contact with each other at the time. I saw only 4 out of those 34 after the executions.

All of them were executed on charges of supporting the Mojahedin and being loyal to their cause.

We neither forgive nor forget and call on the international community that not only Hamid Nouri but also Raisi and Khamenei should be brought to justice for the massacre.

Gholamreza Jalal

Political prisoner: 1980-1986; He spent 6 years in prison.

Prisons: Tehran, Evin, Ghezel Hesar, Gohardasht

I am Gholamreza Jalal, a member of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, MEK. I was arrested in 1980, two years after the anti-monarchy revolution, and I was in various prisons in Tehran, Evin, Ghezel Hesar, and Gohardasht, until 1986.

I need to testify that the 1988 massacre was not the beginning of this path. From the beginning Khomeini wanted to eliminate all the young people who stood up against and resisted his rule. For this reason, during different stages in prison, the prison officials began screening political prisoners. They separated the ones they regarded as more steadfast in their beliefs in Ghezel Hesar and Gohardasht prisons. For example, the prisoners in ward six of Ghezel Hesar Prison were held under a lot of pressure. Also, among the female political prisoners, ward Eight in Ghezel Hesar was separated, and prisoners were subjected to various forms of torture. The torture was a prelude to what they had decided to do, massacring all political prisoners.

They told us their decision at various times without any hesitation, saying that we would not let you leave alive. And they used to say, “You will only leave here, dead.” Or they said that the grenades were ready in case of an event outside prisons. We would drop two grenades in each cell and finish the job. Lajevardi (the infamous butcher of Evin Prison) when he came to inspect the cells, the first sentence he repeatedly said was that you would not leave here alive.

You must have heard about the two-minute trials. You might think that a lot of political prisoners had been indicted. But that was not the case. None of those arrested in the year 1980 had committed any crime at all. Many, like me, were arrested just for distributing the MEK’s publications. Many were arrested for participating in a rally. With the start of the (Iran and Iraq) war, many of my friends, very young at the time, had gone (to the fronts) to defend the cities against the Iraqi invasion but were arrested, and after being held in various prisons, they were finally sent to Ghezel Hesar or Evin prisons and were executed during the 1988 massacre.

In ward six of Ghezel Hesar Prison, they had made the situation very grueling to make it unendurable for the prisoners. They identified those political prisoners who were more steadfast in their beliefs and put more pressure on them in the same ward. For example, you may find it hard to imagine, but in ward six of Ghezel Hesar in the last six cells, up to 40 people were held in each cell. In our cell (number 5), the least crowded, there were 33 prisoners. Cell number 4 had 41 prisoners. The prisoners were kept in a very tight position. After that, they took us to a dungeon called Gavdani.

There, to break the prisoners’ resistance, they starved us. For example, they gave us one spoonful of food every day and wanted to torture us in this way. Then they took us to the cage. I was kept in a small cage for a long time, to the extent that my body shape changed. I was also kept inside a coffin for a long time. When none of these measures worked, to break our resistance, we were transferred to solitary confinements in Gohardasht Prison, along with a large number of other political prisoners.

And now I want to tell you about the fate of my friends that we started our political activities together. We were taken to Gohardasht prison in different wards. Some were kept in solitary confinement in Gohardasht for 2-3 years. At first, in solitary confinement, they tried to break us by leaving us alone and under stress. But then they started torturing as well. But again, they could not reach their goals.

I was released in 1986, but they kept many of my friends in prison. There were about 200 of my friends who, like me, were arrested for political activities (in the year 1980), 80 of whom were in Evin Prison in different wards. I have the names of 32 of them, which I will show you. These are the same people who were arrested with me in 1980. We were friends, and we were kept in the same cell. After I was released, they were kept in prison and were hanged in 1988. Among them were: Saeed Abutorabi, Hassan Afshar, Davood Azarang, Saeed Moravej, Bahman Musapour, Dr. Farzin Nosrati, Morteza Pahlavan, Seyed Hassan Khansari, Hossein Kaffashian, and the rest of my friends in Gohardasht prison.

They were executed because they stood by their principles and paid the price for the freedom of the Iranian people. Now, the same officials, who perpetrated the massacre of our friends, tortured us, and signed the execution order of our friends, are promoted to the highest positions in this regime. In particular, Ibrahim Raisi, one of the key members of the Death Commission, has been appointed as the president of the regime. Other henchmen, for example, Mostafa Pour Mohammadi and Alireza Avaei, were the regime’s Ministers of Justice in the Rouhani’s government, one after another. Ebrahim Raisi was previously the Judiciary Chief and is now the president. I call on the international community and all politicians in the world not to turn a blind eye to this issue. The culprits of the 1988 massacre should be exposed. No one should enter into a trade with them. They must be prosecuted in the International Court of Justice, and we hope that similar to Hamid Nouri’s case, the international community can help us bring these criminals to justice

Khadijeh Borhani

Ten family members, including six of her brothers, have been executed by the Iranian regime.

Seyyed Hossein Seyyed Ahmadi

Two of his brothers have been executed in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners.

Watch the video clip and read the text here

Seyyed Jafar Mir Mohammadi

One of his brothers has been executed in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners.

Watch the video clip and read the text here

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