Symbolic tribunal tries perpetrators of mass executions

Shahrzadnews, June 21, 2012

The ‘Bloody Decade’ event is part of an international fact-finding and publicity campaign. Political prisoners who survived the period, lawyers from Iran and elsewhere, international human rights activists and victims’ families will all give evidence.

Shahrzadnews: Between June 18th and 22nd Amnesty International are holding a symbolic trial in London, aimed at bringing attention to bear on those responsible for the mass executions of Iranian political prisoners during the 1980s, the first years of the Islamic Republic regime’s rule.

The ‘Bloody Decade’ event is part of an international fact-finding and publicity campaign. Political prisoners who survived the period, lawyers from Iran and elsewhere, international human rights activists and victims’ families will all give evidence. International human rights lawyer Payam Akhavan of McGill University, who will act as judge, told Shahrzad News: “This hearing will bring pressure to bear on the regime. Despotic regimes are founded on political violence, and the fact-finding aspect of this trial will play an integral part in banishing such violence from a future democratic Iran. The mass execution of Iranian citizens in the 1980s was a crime against humanity, and this process will be a first step towards bringing justice to the victims and their families. The people responsible for these crimes still hold power in Iran. Until they are brought to justice, we will never have a democracy.”