Iranian party demands end to repression

Amidst recent reports of escalating repression by Iran's 
intelligence services against the country's progressive forces, 
including the use of physical assault, kidnapping, and torture 
against those defending democratic rights and freedom of 
expression, the Tudeh (People's) Party of Iran has called for the 
regime of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to come clean 
about the mass execution of political prisoners during what it 
calls "the National Catastrophe of 1988".

In August and September of that fateful year, following the end 
of the theocratic government's adventurous and reactionary war 
against Iraq, the regime unleashed death squads against 
imprisoned "staunch defenders of the people's rights", the Party 
said in a statement marking the 16th anniversary of the 
massacres.

Thousands of prisoners were killed, including hundreds of leaders 
and members of the Tudeh Party and other progressive groups, 
after they were tried a second time by kangaroo courts widely 
condemned as bogus by international human rights groups.

The goal of this brutal massacre, the Party said, was to purge 
the country of some of its most talented and distinguished 
fighters for justice — party leaders, public figures, 
intellectuals, workers and students — and to create an 
atmosphere of terror "to prevent a social explosion against the 
regime's devastating policies by the masses who had come to the 
end of their tether". 

The Tudeh Party denounced the official "16-year silence" about 
this savage crime, and said, "only by bringing the planners and 
perpetrators of this horrific crime to justice can we prevent 
such crimes from being committed again in the future".

It added, "The experience of the last 16 years has shown us that 
the judiciary of the Islamic Republic, along with the 
intelligence services under the direct supervision of the supreme 
leader, are the greatest threat to the human rights of the 
citizens of our country".

In connection with the 1988 massacre, the statement demanded that 
the ruling regime officially disclose the names of the murdered 
victims, that it release the execution dates and burial sites to 
grieving family members, that it state the reasons for the re-
trials and the names of the officials who presided over them, and 
that it state the charges for which the prisoners were executed.

Looking at today's situation, the Party called for "a broad front 
made up of all anti-dictatorship combatants and the 
intensification of the struggle throughout the country [to] 
achieve the dissolution and radical transformation of these 
bodies along with other fundamental changes necessary for the 
establishment of freedom and justice in our country".

The Party is appealing to progressive forces around the world to 
bring pressure upon the United Nations to investigate the huge 
crime committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

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Full text of statement available at http://www.tudehpartyiran.org