Breathing in Confinement – Ayatollah Montazeri’s official website has published a 40-minute-long audio file of this Shia cleric meeting with four of Iranian officials who are responsible for mass executions of political prisoners in Tehran in the summer of 1988.<\/p>\n
In this audio file, Ayatollah Montazeri in a meeting with Hossein Ali Nayeri (judge), Morteza Eshraghi (Attorney General), Ebrahim Raisi (Deputy Prosecutor) and Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi (Ministry of Intelligence\u2019s representative), expresses his objection against the mass executions in the prisons in the country.<\/p>\n
During the meeting, the \u201charsh manner\u201d in prison in the years before the executions has been discussed. As well as, issues such as \u201cexecution of a 15-year-old girl\u201d or \u201cthe execution of pregnant women in Isfahan\u201d.<\/p>\n
At the beginning of the meeting Ayatollah Montazeri calls the mass executions in summer of 1988, \u201cthe greatest crime in the history of the Islamic Republic\u201d and then warns the 4 men who are known as the members of the \u201cdeath committee\u201d, that in the future they will be known as \u201ccriminals\u201d.<\/p>\n
Also, according to Ayatollah Montazeri, \u201cThe ministry of Intelligence\u201d and \u201cMr. Ahmed\u201d, Ruhollah Khomeini\u2019s son, has been calling for the executions since long ago.<\/p>\n
In this audio file, the members of the committee insist that there have been several cases of 15 or 16-year-old prisoners.<\/p>\n
During the meeting, Ayatollah Montazeri also warns about the coming of the month of Muharram and calls for cessation of executions that Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi in response asks for the permission to execute \u201ca group of 200 prisoners\u201d, which have already been prepared for execution.<\/p>\n
The mass executions in summer of 1988 is one of the cases of human rights abuses that so far have received extensive discussions.<\/p>\n
Reza Malek, a former employee of the Ministry of Intelligence, in a video message from Evin prison in Tehran, addressed the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and announced the number of executed prisoners in that period to be 33 thousand and 700 people.<\/p>\n
This audio file which according to Ayatollah Montazeri\u2019s website has been published \u201cwith integrity and without any edits\u201d can be heard below:<\/p>\n