The report draws on various findings and legal analysis of our research Investigating the 1981 Massacre (2022).
It also highlights various aspects of the documentation work of our research group, Rastyad Collective. After 42 years, our research led to the official recognition of the most extensive mass killings in Iran’s recent history. It is for the first time that a UN Special Rapporteur (or any other UN official) has held the Iranian authorities accountable for the crime of genocide. This is a great victory for the victims and survivors of mass killings.
The most important conclusion of the report: Based on our interdisciplinary documentation work and legal analysis, the Special Rapporteur categorises the atrocity crimes committed in 1981-1982 as genocide and crimes against humanity.
“A recent study, carried out by Rastyad Collective, has provided documents with the identities of more than 3500 victims who were reportedly executed between 21 June 1981 to 21 March 1982 in 85 cities. Reportedly, these numbers also represent the numbers provided in official state media: the established data has been based on more than 250 official documents of judiciary and political authorities, including official statements and press releases issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Courts and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 85 cities.The data has been substantiated by archival analysis of official statements published in three major state-run newspaper: Jomhuri-e Eslami, Ettela’at, and Kayhan. Additionally, field research was conducted in Tehran’s largest cemetery, Behesht-e Zahra, to locate the grave locations of over 1000 executed victims.”
“The Special Rapporteur seeks the establishment of an international accountability mechanism to ensure prompt, impartial, thorough and transparent criminal investigations inter alia of […]b) The “atrocity crime” of genocide during the 1980s including in 1981–1982 and 1988 committed with perpetrator’s specific intent of killing, or physically or mentally harming members of groups perceived as apostates, non-believers, believing in deviant religions or beliefs or members of religious minorities.”
“The Special Rapporteur has received reports that mass executions were carried out to deliberately destroy the perceived “anti-Islam” groups within the Iranian society. In order to provide substantive evidence of the mens rea, a significant number of statements and fatwas issued by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini; Attorney General of Islamic Revolutionary Courts, Hossein Moussavi Tabrizi; Mohammad Mohammadi Gilani and Ayatollah Khamenei, as well as press releases issued by Islamic Revolutionary Courts across the country have been presented. Death sentences had, in most cases, a religious motivation and were intended to exterminate the perceived “anti-Islam” groups, classified as monafeqin (used in reference to members and sympathizers of PMOI, kafir and murtad (used in reference to members and sympathizers of Marxist, Communist and other secular leftist organizations and groups with non-theistic worldviews).[1] The pronouncements and decisions of the Revolutionary Courts confirm that death sentences for these “anti-Islam” groups were issued regardless of the age, gender, and the nature of political activism of individual victims.
The religious nature of allegations against dissidents at the time of the massacre and the establishment of ad hoc religious tribunals (Islamic Revolutionary Courts) across the country in a systematic manner, are arguments directing towards Islamic regime’s special intent to destroy its perceived anti-Islam groups, PMOI, Marxists, communists, and other political groups with non-theistic worldviews. Perpetrators defined these groups and their religious identities based on theological doctrines and in view of their attitude towards religion. The classification of members and underage sympathizers of these groups in terms of “anti-Islam” groups and their destruction based on extra-legal allegations of “waging war against Allah and Islam” demonstrates the genocidal intent of perpetrators. The genocidal aspect of the 1981 massacres is arguably also evidenced by forced conversions of prisoners, who were classified as kafer, murtad or munafiq.”