After a quarter of a century has passed since the massacre of thousands of prisoners (according to Hossein-Ali Montazeri’s memoirs) in the summer of 1367, today, based on the reports of witnesses and some officials of the Islamic Republic during that period, there is no doubt about this crime against humanity. The two questions that stand before us today are: why did the Islamic Republic hand over several thousand prisoners who posed no immediate threat to the survival of the regime to execution squads, and who were the individuals, with what kind of education and training, who had the capacity to carry out this crime?

Why?

The killing of thousands of prisoners who are serving their prison terms by the authorities of the Islamic Republic, under the pretext of the “Eternal Light” operation (Mersad), to ensure the survival of the regime and the assassination of officials by prisoners and prison organizations in connection with the Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq has been justified. However, in 1988 and after the killing of about eleven thousand opposition forces in the years 1980 to 1988, the Mujahedin-e Khalq or any other political group could not overthrow the regime through armed operations from within the prison. Therefore, other reasons must be sought for this massacre.

There are four possible reasons for this massacre from the perspective of the regime authorities that can be raised.

1- The concern of the leader of the Islamic Republic and his close associates about the fate of the Islamic Republic after him. Since 1986, the close associates of the leader of the Islamic Republic knew that he would soon pass away. Therefore, they tried to pave the way for a peaceful transfer of power to one of the members of his inner circle. In this regard, three key actions were considered:

A. Changing the constitution in a way that gives the country’s leader more power and reduces the role of the people and councils in it. The management of state radio and television was transferred from the council composed of representatives of the three branches of government to the leader, or the dissolution of the Supreme Judicial Council and the removal of the prime minister’s position was carried out for this purpose.

B. Removal of Montazeri from the representation of the Supreme Leader. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and Seyyed Ahmad Khomeini did not want power to be transferred outside of their circle. For this reason, they created political and judicial grounds for his dismissal. In the process, some of Montazeri’s close associates also became victims.

The opposition survivors inside the country, who were all in prison and could potentially cause trouble for the regime after their release during the next leader’s era and power transfer, had to be eliminated. That’s why a fatwa was issued by the leader of the Islamic Republic for the killing of those who were against his position. In these killings, the responsibility is usually placed on a three-person team for issuing and carrying out the sentence, while the political decision is made by the five-person circle of government managers during the illness of Mr. Khomeini (the five-person group of Khamenei, Rafsanjani, Mousavi Ardabili, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Ahmad Khomeini).

2- Costly but permanent measures. Despite claims of tolerance by critics, dissidents, and opponents, the Islamic Republic has never had the capacity for such measures and, fundamentally, the legal and ideological perspective of Islamists has prevented the creation of such capacity. The authorities of the Islamic Republic (loyal to the rule of the jurist, as advocated by Mr. Khomeini) were aware from the 22nd of Bahman 1357 (February 11, 1979) that there was no place for liberals, nationalists, Marxists, and anti-jurist Muslims in the political society. It took about four years for them to be able to execute, confine to house arrest, imprison, or force into exile all active members of these groups. The confined (broken in prison and under torture) and exiles did not feel much danger, but political prisoners could always be released from prison and play a leadership role in times of crisis; a fact that the authorities

In this way, it can be said that the authorities were waiting for a day to release political prisoners. The massacre was a solution that came to the minds of security officials and, considering the background they saw in the leader of the Islamic Republic, they went to him and took the fatwa of murder from him. The operation of “Eternal Light” and the end of the war actually provided a suitable time to implement a decision that had been made beforehand.

The Islamic Republic’s authorities have also denied the existence of political prisoners in the years after 1967. Sometimes they have denied their existence altogether, and other times they have labeled them as “security prisoners.” The regime did not want and does not want to have political prisoners, even if hundreds and thousands of political activists are in prison. One of the suspended principles of the Constitution is the trial of political prisoners with a fair jury, which has never been implemented.

3- Decline of the Government’s Basij Power. In the final years of the war, the regime’s capacity to send forces to the front lines had greatly diminished and Basij members no longer had enough motivation to go to a war that had no chance of victory. The government was willing to take any action to boost the morale of its forces, from issuing a fatwa to kill Salman Rushdie for apostasy to massacring opponents in prisons – one for incitement and the other for displaying power.

4- The rise of protests by political prisoners in prison and their families outside of prison. In the years 65 to 67, political prisoners and their families were more active in fighting for their rights compared to previous years. This factor also added to the government’s exhaustion of political prisoners towards the end of the war. In regimes that constantly cover up the issue, killing political prisoners to get rid of them does not require much cunning or intelligence.

The executive factors of this crime are: students of the Shiite Islamic school of thought.

Put yourself in the place of Mr. Khomeini and the closest circle of politicians to him. When you decided to carry out such a massacre (after repeated back and forth between members of the circle, the country’s leader, and security and judicial authorities), how did you implement it and who besides the authorities were involved in the trial, massacre, and torture of opponents? The decision-making and execution process was not that Mr. Khomeini suddenly thought of it and then appointed people to do it; rather, the issue was formed from high-ranking political authorities, namely the closest circle to the leader of the Islamic Republic, then approved by him, and then transferred to lower levels of information, security, and judicial authorities for implementation.

The three-member committee appointed by the leader of the Islamic Republic to make decisions about executions were the same individuals who had spent a decade in the judiciary and prisons, engaged in suppressing and executing opponents. He could not trust anyone other than these individuals. Hossein-Ali Niri (the spiritual leader of Evin Prison), Morteza Eshraghi (the prosecutor of the Islamic Revolution in Tehran), and Mostafa Pourmohammadi (the deputy minister of intelligence) were all intelligence and judicial officials. These individuals were all followers of the school of Islamic fundamentalism of Ruhollah Khomeini (using Islam as an ideology to gain power), who prioritized gaining and maintaining power above all else. They were all around 28 to 32 years old in 1988, and the rewards they received from the government for issuing and carrying out death sentences for thousands of people later on, shows that ambition was one of their common traits.

Those who want to understand Shia Islamism (note that this school is different from Shia Islam as a religion, Shia Islamism is a political school) well, should not only rely on the texts of this school, which are the works of Morteza Motahhari, Ruhollah Khomeini, and Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, but also look at the actions and behaviors of the devoted followers of this school based on those texts. The most serious followers of this school, who were educated in the Haqqani School in Qom and then became key members of security and judicial institutions (including Mostafa Pourmohammadi from the three-member execution committee), are those who, at any cost, defend the regime that was formed on this basis. The core of defending the ruling elite is made up of the security, military, and judicial institutions that are managed by these Haqqani School students and their supporters, such as Mesbah Yazdi.

The massacre of 67, like other cases of human rights violations by the authorities of the Islamic Republic, such as the massacre of protesters in the streets and alleys in 88, bombing at the shrine of the 8th Shia Imam, burning of the Rex Cinema in Abadan, mass killing of unarmed Mujahedin in Ashraf Camp, assassinations outside the country, bombing at the Jewish center, mass and individual executions after brief trials, serial killings of opponents and dissidents, three decades of massacres of Baha’is and Christian evangelicals, torture of political prisoners, stoning of women, and amputation of limbs and fingers of those who oppose the ideology of Islam, are all reasons why Islamists cannot disassociate themselves from these actions.