Speeches by Maliheh Hosseini and Sara Shahmohammadi
Families and witnesses are seeking justice for the victims of the 1988 massacre.
Several former political prisoners, families, and witnesses seeking justice for the 1988 massacre in Iran spoke at a gathering near the Court of Stockholm, where Hamid Noury, one of the perpetrators of the 1988 massacre, is on trial. Following are excerpts of their speeches.
Family member seeking justice for the victims of the 1988 massacre
Maliheh Hosseini is a family member of three victims of the genocide carried out in 1988 in Iran. At the gathering of protesters seeking justice for the massacre victims, she said, “Shahpour Aligholi, one of the members of the Mojahedin, was arrested on April 4, 1984. He was executed after 2.5 years’ imprisonment and torture. Shahpour was his family’s only son and a father to his only daughter, whom he loved the most. But he proudly sacrificed his life for his country.”
“Two of my relatives, named Ali Malayeri and Mohammed Reza Karili, were arrested in 1981. Both were hanged in the 1988 massacre. Ali’s sentence was 10 years’ imprisonment, but they executed him in the massacre.”
Former political prisoner and a witness, Sara Shahmohammadi
Ms. Sara Shahmohammadi is a former political prisoner and one of the witnesses to the 1988 massacre. She asserted, “The regime’s crimes never end, and you can never imagine how far they go. The oppression imposed on each of the families of these loved ones has never been described anywhere in history. There are so many fathers and mothers who, for many years, were subjected to severe slander, pressure, and stress. Most of them, hoping to see their children for 4-5 minutes in the prisons’ visitor sections, returned to their hometowns with their bags in their hands. For example, my father told me that every time he went to Ghezel Hesar Prison, prison officials poured boiling water from the roof onto visitors’ heads so the visitors would have to leave without seeing their children. Every week, when they returned from the visit, they were told, “Next week, we will give you your child’s grave number.”
“Another lesser-known crime was imprisonment of children. Young children were held with their mothers in solitary confinement in various cells. I’m sure that parents present today can imagine how much pressure women political prisoners felt because their children were forcibly kept in prison.”
