The 1988 Executions of Political Prisoners

In the summer and autumn of 1988, at the end of the Iran–Iraq War, the Islamic Republic secretly executed thousands of political prisoners held in jails across the country. Most were members or supporters of the People’s Mojahedin (MEK); others were leftists judged to have abandoned Islam. Human rights organisations put the number killed at between about 2,800 and 5,000 or more; the Iranian state has never published a figure or fully acknowledged the killings.

The background in the summer of 1988

By 1988 Iran’s prisons held thousands of political prisoners arrested during the violent confrontation of 1981–1983 between the new regime and its opponents, above all the MEK (see power struggles after the revolution). Many had already been tried and were serving fixed sentences; some had finished them but had not been released because they would not recant.

On 18 July 1988 Iran accepted the UN ceasefire resolution that ended the war with Iraq (see the end of the Iran–Iraq War). A week later, on 25–26 July, the MEK’s National Liberation Army, armed and supported by Iraq, launched an invasion of western Iran it called Operation Eternal Light (Forugh-e Javidan). Iranian forces crushed it within days in a counter-offensive named Operation Mersad. In the same days Khomeini issued a secret order that those in prison who remained “steadfast” in their support for the MEK were to be put to death.

The “death commissions”

Under the order, panels of three or four officials were set up in Tehran and the provinces. Prisoners called them the “death commissions”. In Tehran the panel included a religious judge, Hossein-Ali Nayyeri; the prosecutor, Morteza Eshraqi; his deputy, Ebrahim Raisi; and a representative of the intelligence ministry, Mostafa Pourmohammadi. Prisoners were brought before them, often blindfolded, for interviews that lasted minutes. MEK prisoners were asked whether they still supported the organisation, which the authorities called the monâfeghin (“hypocrites”), and whether they would denounce it or walk through Iraqi minefields for the Islamic Republic. Those whose answers were judged wrong were hanged, often the same day.

From late August a second round targeted leftist prisoners. They were asked whether they were Muslims, whether they prayed and whether their parents had been believers. Men judged to be apostates were executed; women in the same position were, according to survivors, sentenced to be flogged at prayer times until they agreed to pray. Prisons were closed to visitors for months, and families learned of deaths only later, often by being handed a bag of their relative’s belongings.

Montazeri’s protest

The strongest objection came from inside the system. Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Khomeini’s designated successor, wrote to Khomeini in late July and August 1988 urging him to stop the killings, arguing that they would stain the revolution and violate Islamic law. In a meeting with the Tehran commission on 15 August he told them that history would condemn them. His protest was a main reason he was dismissed as successor in March 1989, opening the way for Ali Khamenei (see the death of Khomeini). In his memoirs Montazeri put the number executed at between 2,800 and 3,800.

In August 2016 Montazeri’s son Ahmad released an audio recording of the 15 August meeting. It caused a stir in Iran. Ahmad Montazeri was prosecuted for publishing it, and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, then justice minister, said he was proud to have carried out God’s command against the MEK.

How many died

No official figure exists. Estimates rest on lists compiled by survivors, families and opposition groups. Amnesty International, in its 2018 report Blood-soaked Secrets, said that about 5,000 people were believed to have been killed and that the true number could be higher. Human Rights Watch and other organisations give figures in the range of 2,800 to 5,000. The MEK says 30,000 were killed; independent researchers have not confirmed that figure. The bodies of most victims were never returned. In Tehran many were buried in mass graves at Khavaran (خاوران), a site families have visited for decades, and where rights groups say the authorities have tried to destroy evidence.

The official position

Iranian officials have rarely discussed the killings publicly. When they have, they have presented them as legitimate punishment of members of an armed organisation that had allied with Saddam Hussein during the war and carried out bombings and assassinations in Iran. Critics reply that most of those killed were already serving sentences, had no part in the 1988 invasion, and were executed without trial.

Accountability

In November 2019 Swedish police arrested Hamid Nouri, a former official at Gohardasht prison, when he arrived in Stockholm. Under universal jurisdiction, a Swedish court convicted him in July 2022 of war crimes and murder over the 1988 killings and sentenced him to life imprisonment. In June 2024 Sweden released him in a prisoner exchange for the Swedish EU diplomat Johan Floderus and another Swedish citizen held in Iran. In 2024 the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, Javaid Rehman, presented a report describing the 1988 executions as crimes against humanity. Relatives and survivors continue to call for an independent investigation; many of them link the killings to the later careers of the officials involved, including Raisi’s election as president in 2021.