Noury’s trial marks a milestone for Iran’s Justice Movement

 By Matin Karim

Swedish prosecutors have requested a life in prison sentence for Hamid Noury, an Iranian regime torturer who has been on trial in Stockholm for crimes against humanity and the torture and execution of thousands of Iranian political prisoners in 1988.

The prosecutors stressed that according to international law, Noury was involved in war crimes, which justifies life in prison.

During the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, Noury was one of the prison authorities in Gohardasht prison, Karaj.

During the court proceedings, Noury denied the 1988 massacre as well as his presence in Gohardasht prison against all the presented evidence. He tried to frame the killing of thousands of prisoners as “lies and propaganda by the MEK and communists.” He tried to portray himself as a minor actor who did not take part in the executions.

But numerous witnesses who testified in the Swedish court gave harrowing accounts of how Noury and other regime authorities sent prisoners to the gallows by the dozens simply for refusing to retract their support for the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). At the time, some 30,000 prisoners were executed across Iran in a few months. The witnesses also testified on the prominent role that regime president Ebrahim Raisi played in prosecuting the prisoners in minutes-long trials without access to lawyers and immediately sending them to the execution hall.

Further evidence obtained from Nouri’s phone showed that he was still in touch with senior regime officials.

Noury’s trial and sentencing will be a key moment in the three-decades long struggle of the Iranian Resistance seeking justice for the victims of the 1988 massacre.

Iran’s Justice Movement dates back to the summer of 1988 when the regime’s first supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, sought to forever bury all evidence of the 1988 massacre with its victims. However, a month after the killings began and while the executions were ongoing in different cities across Iran, Iranian Resistance leader Massoud Rajavi sent a telegram to then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar as the first revelation of the mullahs’ execution spree. The telegram included information about the transfer of 860 corpses from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison to the capital’s Beheshte Zahra cemetery in the span of two weeks, and the arrest of 10,000 people across the country. The existence of a written fatwa by Khomeini to massacre political prisoners, of which the full text was disclosed in 2000 by Khomeini’s redundant heir-apparent Montazeri, was first revealed in Massoud Rajavi’s telegram to the UNSG.

In his telegram, Mr. Rajavi called on the former UN Secretary-General to immediately dispatch a delegation to inspect Iran’s prisons. Mr. Rajavi continued his efforts by sending numerous telegrams and letters to the UN Secretary General and other international human rights organizations calling for investigations and other necessary procedures.

However, the world powers’ appeasement policy resulted in these calls for justice falling on deaf ears. Despite all this, the PMOI/MEK continued and expanded their efforts to collect more evidence and inform the world of the regime’s atrocities.

Dr. Kazem Rajavi, the late older brother of Massoud Rajavi, also played a major part in informing the world about the 1988 massacre. Dr. Kazem Rajavi was a staunch activist always seen in the halls of the United Nations European Headquarters seeking international support to condemn the mullahs’ atrocities and be the voice of the Iranian people among international human rights organizations. Dr. Rajavi was assassinated in Geneva in April 1990 by Iranian regime agents for his role in condemning the mullahs’ human rights violations.

From 2016 onward, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), revitalized the Justice Movement by launching new campaigns focusing on further revelations regarding the 1988 massacre. These measures included preventing the regime from destroying mass grave sites across Iran as the mullahs continue to destroy evidence of their horrific killing spree.

More recently, the mullahs’ regime sought to divert the trial of Hamid Noury into an initiative led by its foreign-based agents and apologists to deny the 1988 massacre altogether. Thanks to the PMOI/MEK’s undeniable evidence before and after Noury’s arrest, coupled with their witnesses’ testimonies, were able to fully neutralize Tehran’s plot in this regard.

As a result, Swedish prosecutors have requested cumulative sentencing, meaning life imprisonment, for Hamid Noury, further confirming that what took place in the summer of 1988 in Iran’s prisons was nothing short of crimes against humanity of the worst kind. Considering the scope of this crime, Swedish prosecutors are insisting that criminals such as Noury deserve nothing less than life in prison.

The Swedish prosecutors are, in fact, voicing the request of an entire nation seeking justice for 43 years of horrific crimes committed by the religious fascism ruling Iran. While today’s target is an Iranian regime operative by the name of Hamid Noury, a very important message is being sent to the perpetrators of the 1988 massacre. Sooner or later, all those involved in the killings of over 30,000 defenseless Iranian political prisoners back in 1988 will be brought to justice.

There is no doubt that the Justice Movement, despite all the obstacles and challenges, will continue its legal efforts against the mullahs’ regime, especially regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Ebrahim Raisi, and all others of the regime’s ranks and files. This is a pledge to those who sacrificed their all for freedom, democracy, and human rights in Iran.

This article was first published by english.mojahedin