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

Mohammad Ali Pejman

About

Nationality: Iran
Religion: Non-Believer
Civil Status: Unknown

Case

Date of Killing: November, 1988
Location of Killing: Gohardasht Prison, Karaj, Tehran Province, Iran
Mode of Killing: Fatal
Charges: Counter revolutionary opinion and/or speech; Apostasy

About this Case

Mr. Mohammad Ali Pejman is one victim of the 1988-89 mass execution of political prisoners in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many of the executed prisoners were members or sympathizers of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI, also known as MKO). However, members or supporters of Marxist Leninist organizations, such as the People’s Fadaiyan of Iran (Minority) or Peykar, which opposed the Islamic Republic, as well as the Tudeh Party and Fadaiyan Khalq (Majority), which did not oppose the regime, were among the victims. Complementary information has been gathered from the memoirs of Ayatollah Montazeri, reports of human rights organizations, interviews with family members, and memoirs of witnesses, all provided to the Boroumand Foundation.

Mr. Pejman is one of the 430 “Martyrs of the Peykar Organization for the Liberation of the Working Class” published on the website of Andeesheh va Peykar. This list contains the names of 400 members and sympathizers of the Organization who have been executed. His execution is also reported in the book by Mr. Nima Parvaresh Unequal Battle: a report of seven years in prison 1982 to 1989 (Andeesheh va Peykar Publication: 1995).

Mr. Pejman was an activist among the Iranian Student Confederation in Kiel, Germany. He was a founder of a group called Peykar-e Khalq outside of Iran. This group joined the Peykar Organization in 1979. He was active in Tehran and an editorial board member of the Peykar-e Theoric publication.

The Peykar Organization for the Liberation of the Working Class was founded by a number of dissident members of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization who had converted to Marxism-Leninism. Peykar was also joined by a number of political organizations, known as Khat-e Se (Third line). The founding tenets of Peykar included the rejection of guerrilla struggle and a strong stand against the pro-Soviet policies of the Iranian Tudeh Party. Peykar viewed the Soviet Union as a “social imperialist” state, believed that China had deviated from the Marxist-Leninist principles, and radically opposed all factions of the Islamic regime of Iran. The brutal repression of dissidents by the Iranian government and splits within Peykar in 1981 and 1982 effectively dismantled the Organization and scattered its supporters. By the mid-1980s, Peykar was no longer in existence.

Arrest and detention

Mr. Pejman was arrested in 1981. There is no other information on his arrest and detention.

Trial

Specific details on the circumstances of the trials that led to the execution of Mr. Pejman and thousands of other individuals in 1988 are not known. According to available information, the Iranian authorities did not try the victims of the 1988 mass execution in a court with the presence of defense lawyers. The prisoners 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, and their faith in God and religion.

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

Charges

No charge has been publicly stated against the victims of the 1988 mass executions. In their letters to the Minister of Justice in 1988, and to the UN Special Rapporteur visiting Iran in February 2003, the families of the victims refer to the authorities’ accusations against the prisoners – accusations 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 of 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 members of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization as “hypocrites” who do not believe in Islam and “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.

Defendants, who did not belong to the Mojahedin Khalq Organization, may have been accused of being “anti-religion” for not having renounced his or her beliefs.

Evidence of guilt

The report of this execution does not contain information regarding the evidence provided against the defendant.

Defense

No information is available on Mr. Pejman’s defense. In their open letter, the families of the prisoners noted that defendants were not given the opportunity to defend themselves in court. The same letter, rebutting the accusation that these prisoners (from inside the prison) had collaborated with armed members of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization in clashes with armed forces of the Islamic Republic, states that such claims “are false considering the circumstances in prisons; for our children faced the most difficult conditions [in prison, with] visitation rights of once every 15 days, each visitation lasting ten minutes through a telephone from behind the glass window, and were deprived of any connection with the outside world. We faced such conditions for seven years, which proves the truth of our claim.”

Judgment

According to Mr. Nima Parvaresh’s report, Mr. Pejman was executed in August of 1988. Months after the executions, prison authorities informed the families about the executions and handed the victims’ belongings to their families. The bodies, however, were not returned to them, but instead buried in mass graves. Authorities warned the families of prisoners against holding memorial ceremonies.

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