Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

for Human Rights in Iran

https://www.iranrights.org
Omid, a memorial in defense of human rights in Iran
One Person’s Story

Tayebeh Khosroabadi

About

Age: 25
Nationality: Iran
Religion: Islam
Civil Status: Married

Case

Date of Killing: August, 1988
Location of Killing: Evin Prison, Tehran, Tehran Province, Iran
Mode of Killing: Hanging
Charges: Counter revolutionary opinion and/or speech; War on God, God's Prophet and the deputy of the Twelfth Imam

About this Case

Ms. Tayebeh Khosroabadi is one of 1,000 people identified in a UN Human Rights Commission’s Special Representative’s Report, “Names and Particulars of Persons Allegedly Executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1988 during the period of July through December,” published on January 26, 1989. Ms. Tayebeh Khosroabadi is also listed among 3,208 members and sympathizers of the People’s Mojahedin of Iran Organization whose execution was reported by the organization in a book entitled Crime Against Humanity . Additional information was drawn from the Bidaran website, the Mojahedin website, and an Electronic Form which was sent to the Boroumand Foundation by one of Ms. Khosroabadi’s cellmates.

Ms. Khosroabadi was born in 1963 in Sabzevar (Khorasan province) and a high school graduate. She was born with a paralyzed leg and walked with difficulty. According to her cellmate, at the time of her arrest she was a new bride. She wanted to learn English and before her execution she did her best to learn the language. According to the Mojahedin website, she had an active role in organizing strikes in prison.

Arrest and detention

The circumstances of this defendant’s arrest and detention are not known. Ms. Tayebeh Khosroabadi was arrested between March 1982 and March 1983. According to her cellmate, who came to know Ms. Khosroabadi in detention, she had backache due to her disability. She had so much pain that another cellmate who was a specialist in physiotherapy (who was executed in 1988) massaged her back to ease the pain.

Trial

Initially Ms. Tayebeh Khosroabadi was tried and condemned to 6 years imprisonment. There is no specific information about trials that condemned this defendant and thousands of political prisoners to death in the span of a few months. According to the available information, the Iranian authorities did not try the victims of the 1988 mass execution in a court with in the presence of a defense lawyer. The prisoners who were executed in 1988 had been questioned by a three-member special committee, composed of a religious judge, a representative of the Intelligence Ministry, and the Tehran Prosecutor. The committee questioned the leftist prisoners about their beliefs, faith in God, and their religion.

According to her cellmate, her imprisonment would have ended in the summer 1988. Ms. Khosroabadi was in the last group of prisoners who were taken from the upper level of the women’s ward to the corridor of Section 209 of Evin Prison to face the Special Committee. At the time, due to over-crowdedness, the Special Committee did not have sufficient time to prosecute this group and they were taken back to their cell. They were the only prisoners (among the victims of the August 1988 executions) who were returned to their cell. They did not suspect that they would be re-tried even though they had noted the prison’s extraordinary circumstances having waited in the corridor of Section 209.

The relatives of political prisoners executed in 1988 refuted the legality of the judicial process that resulted in thousands of executions throughout Iran. In their 1988 open letter to then Minister of Justice Dr. Habibi, they argued that the official secrecy surrounding these executions was a proof of their illegality. They noted that an overwhelming majority of these prisoners had been tried and sentenced to prison terms, which they were either serving or had already completed serving at the time they were retried and sentenced to death.

Charges

No charge has ever been publicly leveled against the defendant or other victims of the 1988 mass execution. In their letters to the Minister of Justice (1988), and to the UN Special Rapporteur visiting Iran (February 2003), the families of the victims refer to the accusations against the prisoners that may have led to their execution. These accusations include being “counter-revolutionary, anti-religion, and anti-Islam,” as well as being “associated with military action or with various [opposition] groups based near the borders.”

An edict from the Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, reproduced in the memoirs of Ayatollah Montazeri, his designated successor, corroborates the reported claims regarding the charges against the executed prisoners. In this edict, Ayatollah Khomeini refers to the Mojahedin’s members as “hypocrites” who do not believe in Islam and who “wage war against God” and decrees that prisoners who still approve of the positions taken by this organization are also “waging war against God” and should be sentenced to death.

Evidence of guilt

The report of this execution contains no evidence provided against the defendant.

Defense

No information is available about her defense. In their open letter, the families of the prisoners note that defendants were not given the opportunity to defend themselves in court. Against the assertion that the prisoners (from inside the prison) collaborated with guerrilla forces operating near the borders, the families submit the isolation of their relatives from the outside during their detention: “Our children lived in most difficult conditions. All visits were limited to 10 minutes behind a glass divider through a telephone every two weeks. Over seven years we witnessed that they were denied access to anything that would have allowed them to establish contacts outside their prison walls.” Under such conditions the families reject the claim of the authorities that these prisoners were able to engage with the political groups outside Iran.

Judgment

According to Ms. Khosroabadi’s cellmate, “they could smell death but tried not to talk about it and not to make the atmosphere of the cell any more tense.” Ms. Khosroabadi continued to study English in the few days she spent in the cell after being returned there from Section 209. After approximately one week, the guards came back and took her and a few others with them. That was the last time her cellmate saw her.

No specific information is available about the verdict leading to this execution. In spite of the completion of her prison term, Ms. Tayebeh Khosroabadi was hanged during the mass killings of the political prisoners in Evin prison in August 1988 (Mojahedin website).

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