Rouhani appoints another 1988 massacre
executioner as justice minister
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has appointed
Alireza Avaie, involved directly in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in
Iran’s Khuzestan Province, to replace Mostafa Pourmohammadi as justice minister
in the new cabinet. Pourmohammadi was one of the three members of the massacre
1988 massacre “Death Commission.”
At a Paris press conference held on September
6, 2016, the Iranian Resistance unveiled Avaie’s involvement in the 1988
massacre in Younesco Prison of the city of Dezful, southwest Iran.
Avaie served as Dezful’s public prosecutor
from 1979 to 1988. During the 1988 massacre he was serving as the city’s
Revolutionary Court prosecutor. Following a fatwa issued by then Iranian
Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, Avaie was the main official in charge of
executions in Younesco Prison. Based on eyewitness reports provided by various
former prisoners, Avaie ordered “juvenile prisoners under the age of 18 to be
executed in groups of two or three, carried out in an empty field near the
prison.”
From 2005 to 2014 Avaie served as chief of the
Tehran Province judiciary and then appointed as deputy interior minister. In
July 2016 Rouhani had him elevated to the head of the president’s Special
Inspections Office.
Avaie was sanctioned by the European Union in
October 2011 for his role in human rights violations and direct participation
of torturing and massacring political prisoners.
Replacing Pourmohammadi with Avaie, one
executioner with another, proves that the entire mullahs’ establishment in
Iran, especially its so-called judiciary, is intertwined with executions,
killings and the massacre of political prisoners. Other justice ministers prior
to Pourmohammadi, such as Morteza Bakhtiari and Ismaeel Shoushtari, were all
involved in the 1988 massacre.
While most of the members of Rouhani’s new
cabinet are the same previous figures, he was forced to replace Pourmohammadi
with another official in charge of 1988 massacre due to the extensive
disclosure of Pourmohammadi as a member of Four-Person Death Committee at the domestic
and international level as well as broad public hatred against him.
Iranian Resistance and its President-electMrs. Maryam Rajavi, while exposing Pourmohammadi's crime, have called for him
to be brought to justice in hundreds of statements, disclosures, speeches and
in correspondence with various international organizations.
The appointment of Avaie, who is very close to
Rouhani, once again proves the fact that the hands all authorities of the
regime, from each faction, are stained with the blood of the Iranian people,
especially the political prisoners, and they should be brought to justice for
their crimes against humanity.
Hassan Rouhani was Deputy Commander-in-chief of the regime's armed forces at the time. Furthermore, since 1982 he was a member of the regime’s Supreme Defense Council and a member of the Central Council of the War Logistics Headquarters.
In those positions, he was fully cognizant of this hideous crime and obviously was in full conformity.
This shows that the notion that Rouhani is a “moderate” and “reform minded” is absolutely preposterous and baseless. Actually he, like all other senior officials of the regime, is a culprit of this hideous crime.
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