VOICES OF A MASSACRE

Powerfully moving testimonies from prisoners who survived the brutal crackdowns in Tehran in 1988 by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

After eight years of destructive war with Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran finally submitted to the cease-fire codified by a U.N. Security Council resolution in 1988. A few days later, Khomeini appeared on TV and, as he put it, drank this “chalice of poison.” Indeed, it was a bitter blow to the IRI, which already had prisons full of dissenters from 1981 onward; some had survived previous waves of executions. At the border with Iraq, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran tried to rise up and were brutally suppressed; many were captured and sent to Evin and Gohardasht prisons. Thus the vengeance against these so-called Monafeqin, or hypocrites, began, carried out by paramilitary gangs in the streets and elsewhere. Most prisoners were interrogated multiple times, and any Mojahedin-branded prisoner who would not “repent,” even those who had served their original sentences, were marked for execution. For several weeks in July and August, the victims were terrorized with blindfolds, forced confessions, torture, and often death (4,500 to 5,000 victims). At the time, little information about the atrocities was available—only what prisoners could glean from each other and the guards. According to Mohajer, who offers a solid introduction, the same scenario played out in other prisons across Iran. The massacre eliminated a large population of Mojahedin and successfully destroyed the Iranian leftist movement for decades to come. Those who remained were deeply scarred, but some escaped. This heartbreaking but necessary text also includes interviews with mothers of the disappeared, a group called the Movement of the Mothers of Khavaran, “who may be likened to the Madres de Plaza de Mayo of Argentina.” The book also features a foreword by Angela Davis, a timeline, and an immensely helpful 17-page glossary.

A wrenching, important work of historical scholarship demanding justice for the victims.