Voices of a Massacre

Untold Stories of Life and Death in Iran, 1988

Nasser Mohajer

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2020
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781786077783
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

In July 1988, the Islamic Republic of Iran agreed to bring an end to the brutal eight-year war with Iraq. Over the next two months, under the orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, political prisoners around the country were secretly brought before a tribunal panel that would later become known as the Death Commission. They were not told what was happening and did not know that one ‘wrong’ answer concerning their faith or political affiliation would send them straight to the gallows.

Thousands of men and women were condemned to death, many buried in mass graves in Khavaran Cemetery in the vicinity of Tehran.

Through eyewitness accounts of survivors, research by scholars and memories of children and spouses of the deceased, Voices of a Massacre reconstructs the events of that bloody summer. Over thirty years later, the Iranian government has still not officially acknowledged that they ever took place.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• A Note on Translation and Transliteration
• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter One • In Hindsight
• Chapter Two • Voices of Survival
• Chapter Three • The Massacre in the Provinces
• Chapter Four • The Mothers of Khavaran
• Chapter Five • Sons and Daughters of the Perished Speak Out
• Chapter Six • A Call for Justice
• Appendix A • Unearthing a Crime Against Humanity in Bits and Pieces
• Appendix B • Political Parties and Organizations of 1980s Iran
• Appendix C • Chronology of the Massacre
• Glossary
• Notes