Letter: SA hosts massacre overseer - BusinessLIVE

As if to give emphasis to the ANC’s pivot away from democracy and human rights, the presidency gave notice on February 14 that Cyril Ramaphosa is to host Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, on a state visit later this month. 

Ramaphosa may need some background briefing notes from his team on his guest. In 1988 Iranian authorities murdered more than 5,000 political prisoners under the direction of a four-man death panel, which included Ramaphosa’s intended guest, Raisi. According to multiple witnesses, Khomeini appointed Raisi to a four-man committee in 1988 to organise and preside over the massacres.

Those who would be executed by the committee had already been sentenced to years in prison — but not to death — during the 1980s for opposing Khomeini’s rule. Many were arrested for merely distributing or reading political tracts criticising the regime. Family photos of those executed showed that most were in their early twenties.

Interrogators would ask prisoners if they would publicly plead “guilty” to treason, denounce the actions of their colleagues, spy for the Iranian regime, participate in regime firing squads, or run through minefields at the Iran-Iraq war front. If a prisoner said no, he or she would be condemned to death. Those condemned were either killed by firing squad or hanged. The mass executions came to an end in September 1988.

To this day families have never been told about burial sites. Moreover, authorities have sometimes broken up commemorative gatherings at presumed burial sites. A comprehensive Amnesty International report details this period.

Sara Gon
Institute of Race Relations

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/letters/2024-02-15-letter-sa-hosts-massacre-overseer/