UN urged to open query into Iran's 1988 killings and Raisi role
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[January 27, 2022]
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) - Prominent former U.N.
judges and investigators have called on U.N. human rights boss Michelle
Bachelet to investigate the 1988 "massacre" of political prisoners in
Iran, including the alleged role of its current president, Ebrahim Raisi,
at that time.
The open letter released on Thursday, seen by Reuters, was signed by
some 460 people, including a former president of the International
Criminal Court (ICC), Sang-Hyun Song, and Stephen Rapp, a former U.S.
ambassador for global criminal justice.
Raisi, who took office in August, is under U.S. sanctions over a past
that includes what the United States and activists say was his
involvement as one of four judges who oversaw the 1988 killings. His
office in Tehran had no comment on Thursday.
Iran has never acknowledged that mass executions took place under
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the revolutionary leader who died in 1989.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Jan/27/images/ads/current/lincolnheating_lda_LUAL_2021.png)
Amnesty International has put the number executed at some 5,000, saying
in a 2018 report that "the real number could be higher".
"The perpetrators continue to enjoy impunity. They include the current
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein
Mohseni Ejei," said the open letter. Ejei succeeded Raisi as head of
Iran's judiciary.
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![](../images/012722pics/news_w45.jpg)
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi stands before a meeting with Syria's
Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad in Tehran, Iran, December 6, 2021.
Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Jan/27/images/ads/current/guzzardos_lda_LUAL_2017.png)
Raisi, when asked about activists' allegations that he was involved in
the killings, told a news conference in June 2021: "If a judge, a
prosecutor has defended the security of the people, he should be
praised." He added: "I am proud to have defended human rights in every
position I have held so far."
The letter, organised by the British-based group Justice for Victims of
the 1988 Massacre in Iran, was also sent to the U.N. Human Rights
Council, whose 47 member states open a five-week session on Feb. 28.
Other signatories include previous U.N. investigators into torture and
former foreign ministers of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Italy, Kosovo
and Poland.
Javaid Rehman, the U.N. investigator on human rights in Iran who is due
to report to the session, called in an interview with Reuters last June
for an independent inquiry into the allegations of state-ordered
executions in 1988 and the role played by Raisi as Tehran deputy
prosecutor.
(Reporting and writing by Stephanie Nebehay; additional reporting by
Parisa Hafezi in Dubai; editing by Gareth Jones)
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