The social groups of the 1988 massacre victims – A terrible crime against humanity – Chapter 6
The social spectrums of the massacre victims in 1988 – The massacre of political prisoners in 1988 – A terrible crime against humanity – Chapter 6
In the continuation of the series of articles published by the human rights society about the massacre victims of 1988. In this article, we discuss the different social spectrums of the massacre victims of 1988. Although reports indicate a high diversity of social spectrums among those executed in the summer of 1988. But most executed prisoners categorized as follows:
students
The average age of the executed prisoners indicates that most of the executed were prisoners who were students when they arrested. They were 16 or 17 years old.
One of the members of the death commission said in the audio file of the meeting with Ayatollah Montazeri on August 15, 1988:
“We have about twenty or so people who were about 16-17 years old when they came to the prison, and now they are 23 or 4 years old. About forty of these, of which only three have been signed, but we have not implemented them yet. Just because we said that until the last day, another argument should be completed with them, so that if there really was no way to return, then a decision would be made.”
Witnesses who survived the massacre consider this person’s claim to be false and say that most of the prisoners who hanged were students. It means, they were not more than 16 or 17 years old when they hanged up.
Leila Hajian, Soheila Hamidi, Rouya Khosravi, Mehri Derakhshannia, Soheila Shams, Soheil Daniali, Masoud Eftekhari, Hamid Moayeri, Masoud Malaabas Esfahani, Masoud Moghbeli, Hamid Khezri and many others were 16 years old when they arrested. Sudabeh Rezazadeh, Mahtab Firouzi, Farhanaz Moslehi, Parveen Bagheri, Saeed Salemi, Javad Sagvand, Ahmad Ali Vahabzadeh and… arrested at the age of 15. Ahmed Gholami was 13 years old.
victims whose ages determined, 25% under 25 years old and 58% up to 30 years
Among the names of the massacred victims whose ages determined, 25% were under 25 years old and 58% were up to 30 years old. Among them, many young people such as Saeed Daniyali, Ahmad Ali Vahabzadeh, and Masoud Darabi have been in prison since they were 13 years old. It means, most of the executed people were in their teens or young ages when they arrested in previous years and were considered students.
Students and professionals
Prisoners who reported the massacre claim that during the massacre in 1988, the focus on students, especially educated women, was obvious. For this reason, students and university graduates are among the victims of the massacre.
A female prisoner writes in her memoirs from prison:
“Students of Iranian society were on death row after the 1978 revolution. With the attack of Khomeini’s guards during cultural revolution on universities, the order to purge and expel the students of this country, along with closing the universities, issued by him. He called the university the center of corruption and all the students of the country anti-revolutionary and Moharebeh. With this way of looking at the university, being a student means fighting with God. And this is multiplied by the culture of degrading women in intellectual thought of the mullahs, in the case of female students.
Forozan Abdi, a student of physical education in Tehran and a member of the Iranian women’s national volleyball team. Razieh Ayatollahzadeh Shirazi, a physics student, Nayereh Fathalian. and Efat Esmaili, a student in Tehran, Shurangiz Karimi, a medical student. Parveen Haeri, a master’s student in language at the University of Tehran, Soudabeh Mansouri, a student in Tehran. Soudabeh Shahpar, a student in Tehran. Horiyeh Beheshti Tabar has two master’s degrees and one bachelor’s degree from Tehran universities. Homa Radmanesh, a student of Tehran, Fazilate Allameh. Electronic engineering student, Mina Ezkia, teacher training student, and dozens of other students, engineers, doctors, and nurses executed during the massacre.
Among the male specialists are Dr. Mohsen Mehrani, Dr. Mansour Paydar, Dr. Tabibinejad, Dr. Shorangiz, Engineer Fazilate Allameh. Engineer Afsaneh Shirmohammadi, Dr. Farzin Nosrati, Mohsen Faghfour Maghrebi, Dr. Maghsood and Mansour Hariri, Dr. Ali Daroudi, Mahmoud Ahmadyani, Mehrdad Ardabili. Mohammad Jangzadeh, Mohsen Vazin, Mohammad Karamati, Roshan Bulbulian, Abolghasem Arzhangi, Mohsen Bahrami, Abbas Poursahli and many other graduates are among these executed.
Women, double massacre victims
One of the women survivors of 1988 massacre, in her writings, mentions the special cells where executed girls taken before execution. She says:
“One of my comrades named….. who was in cell 209 for a while at that time, told us that in the midst of the executions, one day a guard who had not seen him before opened the door of her cell and attacked her while he had no balance. This female prisoner started shouting and fighting with him. Meanwhile, she hears the voice of another guard who hides and knocks on the door with his hand and calls the first guard and asks him to leave the cell quickly.
That pig gets out of the cell and closes the door, the guard who was hiding says to the first guard: Didn’t I say you, only the cells that have a red cross! Why did you enter this cell? After hearing this sentence, this female prisoner notices the marking of the doors of the women’s cells and later sees some marked doors.
The surviving political prisoner heard the screams of other imprisoned women many nights; Screams that indicate the conflict between women political prisoners and a criminal monster.
Another bitter and painful report from Rasht says
“Behnaz Kaviani, a girl who lost her mother when she was born. And her father [Ramazan Ali Kaviani] took care of her with a thousand love and hopes in loneliness and poverty and arrested in Rasht in 1985. The father, who could not bear the arrest of his 17-year-old daughter, tried everything to save her, but useless.
Three years later, one day in 1988. A guard knocks on the door with a box of sweets and a handbag and tells his father: I have come to inform you of your daughter’s release. Sweeten your mouth so I can tell you about your daughter’s freedom. The father, who thought that all his wishes fulfilled, happily takes the sweet and waits to hear the rest of the guard’s explanation. Father asks what is this? The guard says: I was your son-in-law last night…… Your daughter is free now. The father got mad because of this and died sometime later.
Family massacre
According to the reports of the prisoners, they executed dozens of brothers and sisters together in Evin and Gohardasht alone. Masoud ThabetRaftar and his brother Reza, Mohsen SeyedAhmadi, and his brother Mohammad. Mahshid Razzaghi and Ahmad Razzaghi, Manouchehr Nazeri and his brother Javad, Ali Akbar Molla Abdul Hosseini, and his brother Morteza. Massoud and Mansour KhosroAbadi, Ardalan and Ardakan DarAfarin, Nahid and Hamid Tahsili.
Hossein Mirzaei and Mustafa killed in Tehran and their sister Masoumeh executed in Hamadanand. Hassan Mirzaei’s wife and Masoumeh’s wife were executed at the same time.
In some cities, they executed 5 or 6 people from some families. And 2 or 3 of them hanged at the same time. They executed 5 or 6 people from the family of Gholami, Adeb Awaz, Hariri, Rahimnejad, Shujaei, Davoudi, and Burhani.
15-year-old Hamid Khezri hanged a few days after his brother Asghar. Gholamhossein Nayeri one of the members of the death commission, told Hamid we executed one of your brothers in 1981, And we killed one of your brothers a day or two ago…
The families of Haji Isfahani Jahromi in Shiraz, Ardeshiri in Kazerun and Ghadiri in Tabriz are among them. Shojaei family from Shahrekord, from Ahmadi family of Abadan, Fariba, Farhanaz and Mohammad, executed on August 4, 1988, in Isfahan. And Mansour Ahmadi executed in September 1988 in Shiraz. 3 people from the KhosroAbadi family in Sabzevar, named Mansour, Masoud, and Tayyebeh, shot in August 1988. In August 1988, Esmat, Fatemeh and Hossein Adeb-Avaz handed over to the death squad during the same massacre in Shiraz .
The family who lost seven members
Aghdas Hemmati is the seventh person to be executed from the Hemmati family from Semnan. Who was shot in Evin in November 1988 along with her husband Hossein Moakedi. With the execution of Dr. Mansour Hariri and Mohsen Hariri, the Hariri family from Rasht, 5 people executed. Abolfazl and Mina Hashemian from Qazvin joined their brothers Gholam Hossein, Mojtaba, and Habib in the 1988 massacre.
Tahmourth Rahimnejad, a university professor, was the seventh executed and the only survivor of Rahimnejad’s family in Gorgan. Farhang Fadaeenia, the fourth family executed from Ahvaz. Nahid Tahsili, the fourth family executed from Tehran, And Gholamreza Bozorganfard, the fourth family executed from Tehran. Fakhri Azemoudeh Lakami, fourth executed family from Rasht and… many other families, does not fit in the scope of this article.
Massacre of 1988 victims aged 50 and over
Names of 20 executed people between the ages of 50 and 65 recorded, and some of them are mentioned below. A 60-year-old mother named Sadat Hosseini from Jahrom, who executed in Shiraz. And the other mother of Shukri, who made a disclosure after her children’s martyrdom and was arrested. She was shot in Qaem Shahrwhile she was almost paralyzed due to torture.
Two elderly fathers from Gilan and Mazandaran, one Hosseinpour who was a 60-year-old farmer in Astana Ashrafieh executed. Another is Mohammad Ebrahim Rajabi, 58 years old, in Gorgan, whose daughter Parvaneh Rajabi shot in 1981. And he himself was in prison since 1983. Amirhoshang Hadikhanlou from Urmia at the age of 64 and a father named Mehdi Fatahi, a shopkeeper from EslamAbad.
Occupational diversity and geographical distribution of 1988 massacre victims
Among the massacre victims of 1988, the names, and characteristics of different spectrums with different occupations seen. From laborers to farmers and professionals, self-employed people, civil and military employees. Also doctors and medical staff, military officers and personnel, technical and administrative experts, business owners, teachers, and university professors.
Among them Dr. Hamideh Siyahi. Dr. Masoumeh (Shorangiz) Karimian who was hanged in Evin prison along with her sister Mehri. Two specialist doctors named Dr. TabibiNezhad, 55 years old. And Dr. Firouz Saremi, 60 years old, a cancer specialist, hanged in public in Tabriz.
Several artists and sports heroes of Iran, including Abolghasem Mohammadi Arzhangi, a professor of Iranian music and singing. And Forozan Abdi, a member of the Iranian women’s national volleyball team. Mahshid (Hossein) Razaghi, the champion of Iran’s national football team. And Javad Nasiri, a member of the national fencing team, are among the massacred.
Among the 1988 massacre victims whose names published so far, 15% have university degrees.
In terms of geographical distribution, these executions carried out in prisons all over Iran. From big cities such as Tabriz, Urmia, Rasht, Lahijan, Anzali, Astaneh, SomehSara, Rudsar, Gilan to Sari, Babol, and Qaemshahr. Mazandaran. Karaj, Mashhad, Sabzevar, Semnan, Shahrud, Isfahan, Kashan, Kermanshah, and Hamadan. Zanjan, Ilam, Masjid Suleiman. Andimeshk, Ahvaz, Abadan and Shiraz, many political prisoners hanged in the 1988 massacre.
This article continues…
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