16 April 2025 :
April 14, 2025 - IRAN. Regime Cleric Struggles to Justify 1988 Mass Executions
Mohammad Niazi’s report
On April 14, 2025, Iranian state media published the full transcript of a theological-legal session titled “Fiqh and Legal Review of the 1988 Executions of the Hypocrites [the regime’s pejorative to defame the PMOI]”, held on July 27, 2024, at the Imam Reza Institute in Qom. The speaker, Mohammad Niazi—a senior cleric, former Supreme Court judge, and one-time head of Iran’s Supreme Audit Court—set out to respond to what he called “misconceptions” surrounding the mass killings of political prisoners in the summer of 1988. Instead, his remarks laid bare the regime’s ongoing struggle to defend a crime that many legal experts and human rights authorities have classified as a crime against humanity—and, increasingly, as genocide.
The 1988 massacre, which took place under direct orders from former regime Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, saw the execution of thousands of prisoners—mostly members or supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK)—across Iranian prisons. As UN Special Rapporteur Javaid Rehman stated in his July 2022 report, the killings “may amount to crimes against humanity” and were “committed with genocidal intent,” targeting political prisoners based solely on their beliefs and affiliations.
Despite this internationally recognized context, Niazi asserted that “the Imam’s ruling on the 1988 executions is one of the honors of the Islamic Republic,” claiming the killings prevented future violence. Yet, in the same breath, he labored to redefine the victims—not as political prisoners or peaceful dissidents, but as “armed rebels” or “baghi” (those who rise against a just Islamic ruler). This reinterpretation is a far cry from Khomeini’s own 1988 fatwa, which clearly ordered the extermination of all PMOI members who remained “steadfast in their beliefs”—not actions, but beliefs. The text of the fatwa, available through reputable sources such as Iran1988.org, leaves no room for ambiguity: even prisoners who had served their sentences or were not involved in recent military activity were to be executed if they refused to renounce their allegiance.
Niazi’s insistence that the regime was merciful to those who “repented” only underscores this ideological purge. He admitted that prisoners who rejected the PMOI and declared allegiance to the regime were spared. But those who stood by their ideals, even silently, were deemed enemies of God and executed. “Only those who insisted on their organizational loyalty were executed,” he said, while proudly noting that many had been spared, suggesting the regime expected mass defections under threat of death.
This admission is damning. It proves what survivors, families of the victims, and human rights experts have long asserted: the executions were not based on crimes committed, but on refusal to submit.
The speech also highlights a broader failure: the regime’s decades-long effort to smear the PMOI as “terrorists” has faltered. Niazi’s detailed legal exposition, wrapped in theological jargon and historical justifications, betrays an awareness that the public no longer accepts the official narrative at face value. If, as he claimed, the executions were an act of justice against active combatants, why must the regime repeatedly hold academic panels, release long apologias, and resurrect justifications decades after the fact?
The answer is clear: the memory of 1988 remains a flashpoint in Iranian society. The PMOI’s resistance, even from within prison walls, continues to inspire younger generations who see the clerical dictatorship as corrupt, brutal, and unaccountable. The regime’s panic is not about the past—it is about the future. The fact that, 36 years later, a high-ranking cleric must defend the killings at length reveals just how deeply the massacre continues to undermine the regime’s moral authority.
And yet, amid this horror, the legacy of those executed in 1988 endures. They were men and women, many in their twenties and thirties, who were given a choice: denounce their beliefs or die. They chose to stand their ground, knowing the price. As one survivor recently recalled, “They did not want to teach submission. They wanted to leave behind a lesson in dignity.”
These were not criminals. They were revolutionaries of conscience—people who chose truth over tyranny. Their resistance echoes louder with each regime’s attempt to erase or distort their story.
For a dictatorship built on religious dogma and brute force, the unwavering beliefs of the executed have become a mirror reflecting its own moral bankruptcy. As the calls for accountability grow louder, both inside and outside Iran, the regime’s old slogans ring hollow. No amount of rhetorical acrobatics can conceal the truth: the 1988 massacre was not just a crime. It was a calculated attempt to annihilate hope. And it failed.
