Prisoner of conscience Golrokh Iraee sent an open letter from Evin Prison where she is detained calling for justice for the perpetrators of the 1980s massacres in Iran. The letter comes in the wake of the acceptance by the UN working group on enforced or involuntary disappearances of the complaint filed by political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared demanding information about the fate of her siblings executed during the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988. In parts of her letter, Ms. Iraee writes:
“Some recall the 80’s, some have heard about it, but Maryam has lived through it…
With a simple yes or no answer, they executed thousands with a firing square or the gallows. They then piled their bodies, some of which still had life in them, on top of each other in trucks dripping with blood destined for mass graves without gravestones in the dead of night …
And now, this common pain will not subside until all is said and a compelling response is given instead of the denials and the excuses…
Maryam is not just one person.
She is (the voice) of thousands who have lost their family members to the firing squad or the gallows, or in street clashes or under torture, or to the hate of the despotism which has laid the foundations for this tyranny.
Today Maryam is looking for justice for a family that they have tried to kill off, but they are remembered and they have gone down in history.
Maryam’s three brothers and one sister gave their lives for the freedom of their country…
It is merited that we become the voice of those who have been crying out all these years in the skies of this sleepy city, and declare that we all want justice for the bloody crimes of the 80’s…
Hoping for a tomorrow in which the silence has been broken, the unsaid has been said, and justice has prevailed for the innocent who were slain.
Golrokh Ibrahimi Iraie
Women’s Section of Evin Prison
November 2017. “
