I News | By Taz Ali | June 23, 2021
Ahmad Ebrahimi said he was tortured as hardline Ebrahim Raisi’s ‘death committee’ ordered the execution of hundreds of inmates.
A former political prisoner who survived the 1988 massacre in Iran has spoken out against the hardline president-elect.
Ahmad Ebrahimi, 60, told i that he came face-to-face with judge Ebrahim Raisi when he was an inmate in Tehran that year, when Raisi was one of four people on the prosecution committee responsible for the execution of thousands of political prisoners. The group was known as the “death committee” by opponents of the regime.
Raisi, who is under US sanctions for human rights abuses, secured a landslide victory in Iran’s presidential election on Saturday, which saw record low voter turnout of 48 per cent.
Mr Ebrahimi described Raisi’s win as a “nightmare”, adding: “When I saw he was a candidate for presidency I couldn’t believe it.”
In 1981, Mr Ebrahimi, who was 20 at the time, was arrested and sentenced to a suspended execution for supporting the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), which aimed to overthrow the regime. Three years later, his sentence was reduced to seven years in prison.
He said he suffered physical and emotional torture, describing how he would be thrown in solitary confinement for days on end, made to stand for hours while blindfolded and denied sleep.
In 1988, Iran’s then-supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa – a religious decree – commanding all unrepentant Mujahedin prisoners be executed. “This fatwa was hidden from the public for a long time,” Mr Ebrahimi said.
He recalled how Raisi had visited his prison in August, 1988. “It was a Tuesday, me and 60 other people were taken to a corridor and one by one taken to a room with Raisi and others in there. At that time, I wasn’t strong enough to defend PMOI because I was scared. I knew that they were killing people.”
Mr Ebrahimi watched helplessly as 70 of 150 inmates in one section of the prison were executed. In another section, which held hardline opponents of the regime, only 13 of more than 200 prisoners survived.
“Prison is hard enough for anybody to be in, but after that it was hell,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine that these people are not with us anymore. Once someone is in prison we are spending day and night together, sharing stories – once you see that this is happening, it’s shocking, I can’t put it into words.”
Mr Ebrahimi was released from prison in 1991 and fled to the UK in 1999. His wife and son, who was then four years old, joined him in London in 2001. He spoke of his optimism that the people of Iran “know this regime is the number one enemy”, adding that he was happy that more people are becoming aware of human rights abuses in the country.
Human rights organisations estimate that between 4,500 and 5,000 men, women and children were killed in prisons across Iran between July and September in 1988, Amnesty International reported.
On Monday, 150 former United Nations officials and human rights and legal experts called for an international commission of inquiry into the massacre.
When asked about allegations that he was involved in the killings, Raisi told reporters on Monday: “If a judge, a prosecutor has defended the security of the people, he should be praised. I am proud to have defended human rights in every position I have held so far.”
Hossein Abedini, of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told i there were mass boycotts of the election on Saturday, which he described as a “sham election”. He pointed to the lack of choice after moderates and conservatives were barred from standing.
“In this boycott, one could hear the footsteps of the looming uprisings in Iran,” he said. “There have been a number of nationwide uprisings since December 2017, and the regime really was shaken to its core.
“The clerical regime’s sham election was an instalment of a henchman of the 1988 massacre, it’s really an attempt which is doomed to failure.”
The NCRI is hosting the Free Iran World Summit on 10 July, in which tens of thousands of Iranians are expected to take part alongside senior politicians and former government officials from across the world.
