Human rights advocates are warning that Iran may be laying the groundwork for a new wave of political executions following the war with Israel, drawing parallels to the 1988 mass killings of political prisoners.
In a letter to the United Nations, 301 rights defenders organized by Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Massacre in Iran (JVMI) urged immediate action to stop what they described as an “escalating wave of political executions and entrenched impunity.”
“The risk of another mass atrocity, reminiscent of the 1988 massacre, is alarmingly real,” the letter read.
The warnings follow a series of troubling signals from Iranian authorities in the aftermath of the 12-day war with Israel in June.
Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, said Wednesday that about 2,000 people had been arrested during and after the conflict, with some detainees accused of collaborating with Israel potentially facing the death penalty.
“In our law, anyone who cooperates with a hostile state during wartime must be arrested and prosecuted,” he told state TV.
Re-run of a crime?
Iran’s IRGC-linked Fars News Agency has gone further, explicitly calling for mass executions “in the manner of 1988” for those allegedly aiding Israel through espionage or arms smuggling.
Earlier this month, UN experts also sounded the alarm, urging Iranian authorities to halt what they described as a post-war crackdown marked by executions, arbitrary detentions, and censorship.
In the summer of 1988, thousands of prisoners—many already serving sentences for dissent—were executed in secret after a fatwa by then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, following a surprise cross-border attack by the armed opposition group MEK from Iraq, just days after Iran accepted a UN ceasefire to end the eight-year war with its neighbor.
Amnesty International estimates the death toll at no fewer than 5,000.
Victims were buried in unmarked graves, and families were never formally notified. Iran has never acknowledged the full extent of the killings, while survivors and families continue to face harassment and denial of burial rights.
