“The person who stabbed my dear mother in the chest and killed her so brutally, has said that we always carried out such missions by invoking “Ya Zahra” and this time they did the same. It is written that they were performing ablution. They turned my father’s body (or at the same time they were killing him) towards the Qibla and wrote in the file that because their work (that night) was prolonged, they received overtime pay which was paid with their salary slip. These details, like a flood, hit the case in a human form.”

This corner of truth is a bitter and shocking account of Parvaneh Forouhar’s journey through years of seeking justice for the murder of her parents by security forces in the Islamic Republic. Parvaneh Eskandari and Dariush Forouhar were brutally killed on the first day of Azar in 1377 (November 1998) in their home in Tehran during a series of chain murders. For the past 24 years, Parvaneh Forouhar has faced all the pressures and threats, and every year she goes to Iran to hold a memorial ceremony for her parents at the house where they were brutally stabbed to death. Years ago, when I was working at Radio France, I had a face-to-face interview with her in Paris. In response to why she continues to travel to Iran and hold memorial ceremonies at the house where her parents were killed, Parvaneh Forouhar said, “I am seeking fair justice.”

He has been pursuing a fair trial in this path and so far the only response he has received from the Islamic Republic has been threats, but no security pressure has prevented him from continuing his pursuit. Just as security threats could not prevent the families of the victims of the 1960s and November 1998 from seeking justice.

“Soran Mansournia” whose 28-year-old brother, Barahan, was killed in the events of November 1998, in response to the question of what goal he is pursuing in seeking justice for his brother’s blood, says: “Now, in a time when the Islamic Republic is ruling in Iran, the greatest duty of seeking justice or the maximum activity that justice-seeking families can do is to fight against forgetting. We have a duty to keep the blood spilled red; because the remembrance of the crime itself is a fight against a criminal system. At present, when there is no impartial judiciary system in the Islamic Republic and one crime leads to another and the new crime pushes the previous one into oblivion – like all the crimes that have happened in the past decades in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 1401, where every crime that happens pushes the previous crimes into a kind of oblivion – and this makes the duty

Soran talks about the day of the incident and how his brother was killed: “On the 25th of Aban month in 98, Behran was shot in Kermanshah and unlike many other casualties who died immediately after being shot, Behran survived for 34 hours. We transferred him to Taleghani Hospital in Kermanshah, but due to medical negligence, Behran died in the hospital. We filed two complaints, one against the police force – because Behran himself had told us that he was shot by a special unit – and the second complaint against his treating doctor, Dr. Mohammad Mehdi Shakari. We did not expect the complaint against the police force to go anywhere, but we expected the complaint against the doctor to be followed up in the judicial system and for a letter to be sent to us. But it seems that even that case was too sensitive and both of our complaints, which were registered in the Sana system, remained unanswered

The government, in order to cover up the killing of Behrouz by the police force, went to Behrouz’s family and asked them to declare him a martyr. Suran, regarding his family’s stance against the Martyrs Foundation, said: “In Iran’s Islamic Republic, they declared us as a martyr’s family and asked us to go to the Kermanshah Martyrs Foundation to file a case, but we did not take action. Finally, my father contacted the head of the Kermanshah Martyrs Foundation and said that we do not accept this verdict that our son be declared a martyr of the Islamic Republic. This itself caused a case to be opened against us in the Islamic Republic system, and the head of the Kermanshah Martyrs Foundation directly told us that if we do not accept this decision, the Kermanshah Province Provisional Council will file a complaint against our family. We closed the case altogether and as a helpless

After leaving Iran in August 2021, Soren continued his pursuit for justice and formed the Association of Families of Victims of November 2019 with other families of those killed. They first began collecting information such as burial permits, death certificates, and legal medical files.

He also mentions that the first step in the constitution of the Family Court Association is collecting information, and the second step is taking these cases to a fair and impartial court in one of the international courts outside the country. The next step is registering the horrific November crime as a crime against humanity in international institutions and human rights organizations.

Unspoken, the symbol of the heinous crime that has tied the families of the judiciary together is the systematic crime that the Islamic Republic has committed in the past decades. Each person who was killed tore apart a family and these families found each other. Soran also became more and more familiar with these families of the judiciary. He says, “We had a meeting before the uprising of women’s liberation in Paris on the anniversary of the summer massacre of 1967 and we talked about all the families of the judiciary coming together under one institution, but we came to the conclusion that due to the difference in crimes, it is not possible to directly bring all the crimes under one institution. For example, a crime like shooting two missiles by the Revolutionary Guards at the Ukrainian plane, its judiciary is easier than that of November 1998 and combining these two cases in the judiciary will not benefit the Iranian judiciary movement; while expediting the judiciary of the Ukrainian plane case can result in the declaration of the

Soran, who witnessed his brother resorting to violence to survive, believes that the social capital behind the families of the victims should be gathered in the council in order to control the cycle of violence in post-Islamic Republic era. His effort is to ultimately moderate this cycle of violence in the short and medium term and stop it in the long term.

In response to the question of why the judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran does not address the complaints and inquiries of the families of victims, he said: “Traditionally, in the past hundred years in Iran, the judiciary has not been an independent institution from the government, meaning that this judiciary has always been in service of the government and the judicial institutions played a role in covering up the crimes of the Islamic Republic. In my opinion, this is much more deeply rooted than the November or the massacre during the women’s movement for freedom. Not only in the Islamic Republic, but even in previous periods, we did not have an independent judicial institution to take the perpetrators to court and deliver justice. It is very logical that when we look at the bigger picture, the judiciary will not give us an answer and we knew from the beginning of our complaint against the Islamic Republic that we would not receive a response from them. But we needed a document to show that we had filed a complaint and had not

He emphasizes that seeking justice is a longer and more complicated path than revolution, and ultimately it should lead to a point where shedding human blood in that country is considered a disgrace; the blood of a person should not be deemed worthless due to political and religious differences.

“Mahsa Pirayi” is from the families of the slain victims of the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement. Her mother, Minoo Majidi, was killed by security forces in Kermanshah. When asked if her family had filed a complaint with the judicial authorities of the Islamic Republic, she says: “We have no faith in the courts in Iran because there is no independent judiciary that can oversee the government’s actions. That’s why we did not file a complaint in Iran. My sister Roya and I are outside of Iran, my father had spoken with a lawyer and we came to the conclusion that there is no fair court in Iran for us to file a complaint. The experiences of other families of victims also show that they have gone to court multiple times and have faced all kinds of insults. They take them and bring them back and create heavy cases against them and even arrest their lawyers and families. But outside of Iran, we will definitely file a complaint

Mahsa saw her mother for the last time three weeks before she was killed. Mahsa’s mother was shot and killed by government forces on September 20, 1982 in Kermanshah. Mahsa says, “Everything happened quickly for the Green Revolution. It was the first day of protests when my mother went to Kermanshah and was killed. She had this spirit. I was a student activist for the Green Movement and we would protest together in Kermanshah. She always participated in the demonstrations and was never indifferent. But we never thought she would go and be killed. I think my mother and those who were killed never thought they would go and be killed. We expected beatings, tear gas, and batons. But even in the first days, we didn’t expect to be attacked and shot at.”

یاران خود وفادار باشد

Mahsa, like a swallow, believes that justice must continue and despite security pressures, she must remain loyal to the families of her comrades, just like Sohrab Mansournia.

Casualties

They must continue to question. He says, “It doesn’t matter if the trial is in Iran or not. From the very first day, we tried to be the voice of my mother and the other victims. We must use every tribunal and not let their names be forgotten. As much as we can, we must stand with the plaintiffs of the 1990s who have never lost hope, even though the attention now is on the victims of the regime in 1401, not the victims of the 1990s or even Aban. But still, their families did not lose hope and moved forward with strength, and we saw that they were successful in the trial of Hamid Noori, and this was a very big victory. I think we are learning from these things and we must come together to make our voices louder and use the political perspective and the experience of the families of the 1990s, and unite with other families to take this trial to victory.”

Mahsa emphasizes: “We know the reality that no matter what we do, our loved ones will not come back and the spilled blood will never be gathered, and with every life taken, multiple families are destroyed. This is a reality and there is never any justice for it. But at least we want the perpetrators and leaders of these crimes to not be able to continue their lives easily and to not commit more crimes. We don’t want these crimes to become normal and we want the world to stand with us so that a bigger court than Hamid Nouri’s court can be held.”