In this IHRDC witness statement, Danial Shahri--a 21 year old son of Christian converts from Isfahan, Iran--recalls his activities with a home run church in Iran that eventually led to his arrest in April 2010 and resulting imprisonment. Name: Danial Shahri Date of Birth November 10, 1990 Place of Birth: Isfahan, Iran Occupation: Student Interviewing Organization: Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) Date of Interview: October 18, 2011 Interviewer: IHRDC Staff This statement was approved by Danial Shahri on February 13, 2012. There are 37 paragraphs in the statement

This report provides a detailed account of the unlawful summary trials and executions that took place in the Kurdish regions of Iran during August and September of 1979.

Pursuant to Ayatollah Khomeini’s instructions to crush the Kurds, Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali ordered that tens of people be executed in a matter of weeks. While these events took place over 30 years ago, they are still relevant today as they turned out to be only a prelude to the Islamic Republic’s regular and persistent suppression of minority voices.

This report documents the ordeals of five former prisoners – two women and three men – who were raped, and witnessed and were threatened with rape while imprisoned in Iranian prisons.

This report examines the Islamic Republic’s attempt to dismantle the women’s rights movement leading up to and following the June 12, 2009 presidential election. Members of the movement – from part-time volunteers to world-renowned human rights defenders – have been faced with a stark choice – cease their activism in order to protect themselves, their families and livelihoods, or continue their activism at the risk of facing criminal allegations, arbitrary arrest and detention, interrogation, torture and even death. Many have fled the country.

The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) believes that the development of an accountability movement and a culture of human rights in Iran are crucial to the long-term peace and security of the country and the Middle East region. As numerous examples have illustrated, the removal of an authoritarian regime does not necessarily lead to an improved human rights situation if institutions and civil society are weak, or if a culture of human rights and democratic governance has not been cultivated. By providing Iranians with comprehensive human rights reports, data about past and present human rights violations and information about international human rights standards, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the IHRDC programs will strengthen Iranians’ ability to demand accountability, reform public institutions, and promote transparency and respect for human rights. Encouraging a culture of human rights within Iranian society as a whole will allow political and legal reforms to have real and lasting weight.

This report is a collection of witness statements documenting the experiences of five female prisoners in connection with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s summary execution of thousands of political prisoners during the summer of 1988. These witnesses recount, in vivid detail, the climate of fear, chaos and utter confusion that took hold of the prisons immediately before the executions began in July 1988. One witness describes her efforts to obtain information about her imprisoned husband, while the others provide harrowing accounts of events inside the prisons. Along with its companion report, Deadly Fatwa: Iran’s 1988 Prison Massacre, this report contributes to documenting a national tragedy that has inexplicably received little international attention. (This report was revised in January 2010 to correct inadvertent errors in a witness statement.)

This report documents and analyzes the Iranian government’s massacre of political prisoners in 1988. Pursuant to a fatwa issued by then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, the government systematically interrogated, tortured and summarily executed thousands of political prisoners. Many families were never informed about the executions and many of the victims were buried in unmarked mass graves. The Iranian government has never identified those who were secretly executed and tortured, and has never issued an explanation for this crime.

This report complements two earlier publications, A Faith Denied The Persecution of the Bahá’ís of Iran (2006) and Community Under Siege: The Ordeal of the Bahá’ís of Shiraz (2007). It argues that the Islamic Republic’s campaign of persecution against Iran’s Bahá’ís involves acts contrary to the principles of common humanity under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, customary law and international criminal law – acts that amount to crimes against humanity.