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CRIMINAL COVER-UP: IRAN DESTROYING MASS GRAVES OF VICTIMS OF 1988 KILLINGS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For nearly three decades, the Iranian authorities have systematically concealed the whereabouts of the remains of thousands of prisoners of conscience and others detained on politically motivated charges who were forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed by the Iranian authorities between late July and early September 1988. Based on information provided by family members of victims, human rights defenders, Persian-language media outlets and political opposition groups, Justice for Iran estimates that there may be more than 120 locations across Iran that contain the remains of these victims. Many grave sites are located in deserted areas inside or in the vicinity of cemeteries.
Research undertaken by Amnesty International and Justice for Iran has documented actions taken by the authorities between 2003 and 2017 to destroy or damage seven confirmed or credibly suspected mass grave sites across Iran. The actions include: bulldozing; hiding the mass graves beneath new, individual burial plots; constructing concrete slabs, buildings or roads over the mass graves; and turning the mass grave sites into rubbish dumps. In at least three cases, the authorities appear to be planning actions that would further damage the mass graves.
Amnesty International and Justice for Iran are not able to identify which government authority is responsible for ordering or authorizing the destruction. The management of cemeteries generally rests with municipal authorities in Iran. However, sites that are believed to contain mass graves of victims of the 1988 prison killings are under regular patrolling and close surveillance by security and intelligence officials. It is, therefore, highly likely that judicial officials and intelligence and security bodies are involved in the decision-making processes related to their desecration and destruction.
Amnesty International and Justice for Iran are gravely concerned that by taking steps to destroy the mass grave sites of the victims of the 1988 prison killings, the Iranian authorities are destroying vital forensic evidence and depriving the victims’ families, as well as society as a whole, of their rights to truth, justice and reparation.
At two suspected mass grave sites in Behesht Reza cemetery in Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi province, north-eastern Iran, and in Tazeh Abad cemetery in Rasht, Gilan province, northern Iran, the authorities have built new burial plots over the mass graves while keeping the new owners unaware about the land’s harrowing past. At another suspected mass grave site in Vadieh Rahmat cemetery in Tabriz, East Azerbaijan province, the authorities have poured concrete over more than half of the area and turned the site into an open-air funeral space.
A fourth suspected mass grave which has faced destruction lies in the grounds of the former premises of the Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province. Today it forms part of a crowded shopping area around Shahrdari Square in Sanandaj.
Three additional sites that are in peril are located near Behesht Abad cemetery in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province; near Golestan Javid cemetery in Khavaran, south-east of Tehran; and near the Baha’i cemetery in Qorveh, Kurdistan province. The first one has been desecrated through rubbish dumping and is at imminent risk due to an ongoing road-widening project. The other two were subjected to bulldozing in 2009 and 2016, respectively. In Qorveh, families were told by an official in the Ministry of Agriculture that the grave site had been classified as agricultural land and the graves were destroyed with the approval of the Office of the Prosecutor in Qorveh on the grounds that they constituted “illegal building” on “agricultural” land.
The locations examined in this report were selected because Amnesty International and Justice for Iran were able to obtain detailed information about both the burial of victims of the 1988 prison killings in these areas and destructive actions taken by the Iranian authorities there, including reliable first-hand testimonies, photo and video evidence, and satellite imagery. The choices also reflect the efforts made to identify sites in different areas across the country.
Between November 2015 and January 2018, Amnesty International and Justice for Iran interviewed, separately or together, 28 former prisoners and 23 family members of prisoners. They provided information about the manner in which the authorities planned and carried out the mass killings of 1988 and concealed the fate and whereabouts of the victims as well as the sequences of events leading to the discovery of the mass graves and the destruction and damage that has since been inflicted on them. In addition, the organizations interviewed 13 individuals, including human rights defenders and eyewitnesses, who provided first-hand testimonies about the burial of victims in mass graves and the destruction that the mass graves have since faced. Some of the interviews were conducted in person while others were done remotely through messaging applications.
Amnesty International and Justice for Iran also managed to obtain satellite imagery, video footage and photographs that provided compelling visual evidence of the destructive actions taken by the authorities at the confirmed or suspected mass grave sites.
The Iranian authorities’ systematic concealment of the whereabouts of the victims of the 1988 prison killings amounts in each case to enforced disappearance, which is a crime under international law.
The anguish and distress caused to the families by the authorities’ decisions to forcibly disappear and secretly execute their loved ones, to conceal the truth about the whereabouts of their remains, and to desecrate and otherwise damage their mass graves constitute a form of torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment against the families.
Amnesty International and Justice for Iran call on the Iranian authorities to immediately stop the destruction of the mass grave sites containing the remains of the victims of the 1988 prison killings and ensure that they are preserved and protected as recognized crime scenes until proper, independent forensic investigations can be carried out to determine the identity of the remains and the circumstances of what happened. Those responsible for extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances must be brought to justice in fair proceedings without recourse to the death penalty.
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Research undertaken by Amnesty International and Justice for Iran has documented actions taken by the authorities between 2003 and 2017 to destroy or damage seven confirmed or credibly suspected mass grave sites across Iran. The actions include: bulldozing; hiding the mass graves beneath new, individual burial plots; constructing concrete slabs, buildings or roads over the mass graves; and turning the mass grave sites into rubbish dumps. In at least three cases, the authorities appear to be planning actions that would further damage the mass graves.
Amnesty International and Justice for Iran are not able to identify which government authority is responsible for ordering or authorizing the destruction. The management of cemeteries generally rests with municipal authorities in Iran. However, sites that are believed to contain mass graves of victims of the 1988 prison killings are under regular patrolling and close surveillance by security and intelligence officials. It is, therefore, highly likely that judicial officials and intelligence and security bodies are involved in the decision-making processes related to their desecration and destruction.
Amnesty International and Justice for Iran are gravely concerned that by taking steps to destroy the mass grave sites of the victims of the 1988 prison killings, the Iranian authorities are destroying vital forensic evidence and depriving the victims’ families, as well as society as a whole, of their rights to truth, justice and reparation.
At two suspected mass grave sites in Behesht Reza cemetery in Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi province, north-eastern Iran, and in Tazeh Abad cemetery in Rasht, Gilan province, northern Iran, the authorities have built new burial plots over the mass graves while keeping the new owners unaware about the land’s harrowing past. At another suspected mass grave site in Vadieh Rahmat cemetery in Tabriz, East Azerbaijan province, the authorities have poured concrete over more than half of the area and turned the site into an open-air funeral space.
A fourth suspected mass grave which has faced destruction lies in the grounds of the former premises of the Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province. Today it forms part of a crowded shopping area around Shahrdari Square in Sanandaj.
Three additional sites that are in peril are located near Behesht Abad cemetery in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province; near Golestan Javid cemetery in Khavaran, south-east of Tehran; and near the Baha’i cemetery in Qorveh, Kurdistan province. The first one has been desecrated through rubbish dumping and is at imminent risk due to an ongoing road-widening project. The other two were subjected to bulldozing in 2009 and 2016, respectively. In Qorveh, families were told by an official in the Ministry of Agriculture that the grave site had been classified as agricultural land and the graves were destroyed with the approval of the Office of the Prosecutor in Qorveh on the grounds that they constituted “illegal building” on “agricultural” land.
The locations examined in this report were selected because Amnesty International and Justice for Iran were able to obtain detailed information about both the burial of victims of the 1988 prison killings in these areas and destructive actions taken by the Iranian authorities there, including reliable first-hand testimonies, photo and video evidence, and satellite imagery. The choices also reflect the efforts made to identify sites in different areas across the country.
Between November 2015 and January 2018, Amnesty International and Justice for Iran interviewed, separately or together, 28 former prisoners and 23 family members of prisoners. They provided information about the manner in which the authorities planned and carried out the mass killings of 1988 and concealed the fate and whereabouts of the victims as well as the sequences of events leading to the discovery of the mass graves and the destruction and damage that has since been inflicted on them. In addition, the organizations interviewed 13 individuals, including human rights defenders and eyewitnesses, who provided first-hand testimonies about the burial of victims in mass graves and the destruction that the mass graves have since faced. Some of the interviews were conducted in person while others were done remotely through messaging applications.
Amnesty International and Justice for Iran also managed to obtain satellite imagery, video footage and photographs that provided compelling visual evidence of the destructive actions taken by the authorities at the confirmed or suspected mass grave sites.
The Iranian authorities’ systematic concealment of the whereabouts of the victims of the 1988 prison killings amounts in each case to enforced disappearance, which is a crime under international law.
The anguish and distress caused to the families by the authorities’ decisions to forcibly disappear and secretly execute their loved ones, to conceal the truth about the whereabouts of their remains, and to desecrate and otherwise damage their mass graves constitute a form of torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment against the families.
Amnesty International and Justice for Iran call on the Iranian authorities to immediately stop the destruction of the mass grave sites containing the remains of the victims of the 1988 prison killings and ensure that they are preserved and protected as recognized crime scenes until proper, independent forensic investigations can be carried out to determine the identity of the remains and the circumstances of what happened. Those responsible for extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances must be brought to justice in fair proceedings without recourse to the death penalty.
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