Ashraf Sadat Ahmadi was born in Tehran in 1941 and finished her high school education there.
While pregnant and suffering from severe heart disease, she was arrested in the summer of 1975 for her political activities during the despotic Shah’s era.
Under these circumstances, she gave birth to her daughter in Evin Prison and raised her for 5 months.
Ashraf was sentenced to 15 years in prison and was released a few months before the fall of the Shah’s regime.
After the revolution, when Khomeini came into power in 1979, Ashraf was once again arrested and imprisoned for being a member of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
Having experienced interrogation during the Shah’s era, Ashraf Ahmadi helped many female prisoners with advice to not let the interrogators extract confessions from them.
A report from Ashraf’s cellmate reads as follows: “In the summer of 1981, while being at ward 311 in Evin Prison, I heard about her capture. In the beginning of her arrest we were at different cells and we had no direct contact, but 8 months later we found ourselves together in room 4 in ward 240. Room 4 was full of adamant political prisoners. (Assadollah) Lajevardi, known as the butcher of Evin Prison, was quite sensitive due to the presence of Ashraf in this room. The situation was such that anyone returning from interrogation could not go and talk to Ashraf or establish a close relationship with her. As soon as the guards would notice or learned of such events, they would increase pressure on not only Ashraf, but on the other Mojahedin prisoners as well.”
Ashraf, a married 47-year-old, mother to 4 children, was finally hanged on July 31, 1988 in Evin prison;
She spent a decade (3 years during the shah’s reign with another 7 under Khomeini) as a political prisoner in Iran’s notorious prisons.
Three months after Ashraf’s execution, the regime’s agents informed her family and handed over her bag to her mother without saying a word about Ashraf’s burial place.
1988 Massacre of Political Prisoners in Iran
A Crime Against Humanity
The Facts
- In 1988, the Iranian regime massacred 30,000 political prisoners.
- The executions took place based on a fatwa by Supreme Leader Khomeini.
- Three-member commissions known as ‘Death Commissions’ were formed across Iran sending political prisoners who refused to abandon their beliefs to execution.
- The victims were buried in secret mass graves.
- The perpetrators continue to enjoy impunity.
- Since 2016, the names of nearly 100 ‘Death Commission’ members have been revealed. Many still hold senior positions in the Iranian judiciary or government.
The Human Rights Council needs to conduct an international investigation into the 1988 massacre. This would be the first step to end the impunity for the officials, agents and those who ordered the largest political crime of the century.
Khamenei and other leaders of the regime need to be prosecuted and face justice for committing crimes against humanity.
