Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

for Human Rights in Iran

https://www.iranrights.org
Omid, a memorial in defense of human rights in Iran
One Person’s Story

Simin Azar Hedayat Monfared

About

Age: 25
Nationality: Iran
Religion: Presumed Muslim
Civil Status: Unknown

Case

Date of Killing: 1988
Location of Killing: Shiraz, Fars Province, Iran
Mode of Killing: Fatal
Charges: Unknown charge

About this Case

Ms. Siminazar Hedayat Monfared is one of the victims of the 1988-89 mass execution of political prisoners in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many of the executed prisoners were members or sympathizers of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI, also known as MKO). However, members or supporters of Marxist Leninist organizations such as, the People’s Fedayin of Iran (Minority) or Peykar, which opposed the Islamic Republic, as well as the Tudeh Party and Fadayian Khalq (Majority), which did not oppose the regime, were among the victims. Complementary information has been gathered from the memoirs of Ayatollah Montazeri, reports of human rights organizations, interviews with family members, and memoirs of witnesses by the Boroumand Foundation.

Additional information about Ms. Hedayat Monfared, daughter of Ya’qub, has been drawn from a few electronic forms sent to Omid by individuals familiar with this case. She was born in Gachsaran (Dogonbadan) in Boyr-Ahmad va Kohkiluyeh province. She was an accounting student at the private university of Yasuj.

Arrest and detention

Ms. Hedayat Monfared was arrested in 1987 in Yasuj and charged with cooperation with the Mojahedin Khalq Organization. According to the available information, she was given a temporary leave of absence from prison the same year. No further detail is available about her arrest and detention.

Trial

A closed trial condemned Ms. Hedayat Monfared to one year imprisonment, and subsequently she was transferred to Shiraz. Whether or not there was a second trial that condemned her to death is not know. Specific details on the circumstances of the trials that led to the execution of Ms. Hedayat Monfared and thousands of other individuals in 1988 are not known. According to the available information, the Iranian authorities did not try the victims of the 1988 mass execution in a court with in the presence of a defense lawyer. The prisoners who were executed in 1988 had been questioned by a three-member special committee, composed of a religious judge, a representative of the Intelligence Ministry, and the Tehran Prosecutor. The committee questioned the leftist prisoners about their beliefs and their faith in God and religion.

The relatives of political prisoners executed in 1988 refute the legality of the judicial process that resulted in thousands of executions throughout Iran. In their 1988 open letter to then- Minister of Justice Dr. Habibi, they argue that the official secrecy surrounding these executions is proof of their illegality. They note that an overwhelming majority of these prisoners had been tried and sentenced to prison terms, which they were either serving or had already completed serving at the time they were retried and sentenced to death.

Charges

The official charge brought against Ms. Hedayat Monfared after her arrest was cooperation with the Mojahedin Khalq Organization. No charge has been publicly leveled against the victims of the 1988 mass execution. In their letters to the Minister of Justice (1988), and to the UN Special Rapporteur visiting Iran (February 2003), the families of the victims refer to the authorities’ accusations against the prisoners – accusations that may have led to their execution. These accusations include being "counter-revolutionary, anti-religion, and anti-Islam," as well as being "associated with military action or with various [opposition] groups based near the borders."

An edict of the Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, reproduced in the memoirs of Ayatollah Montazeri, his designated successor, corroborates the reported claims regarding the charges against the executed prisoners. In this edict, Ayatollah Khomeini refers to the PMOI's members as "hypocrites" who do not believe in Islam and "wage war against God" and decrees that prisoners who still approve of the positions taken by this organization are also "waging war against God" and should be sentenced to death.

Evidence of guilt

The report of this execution does not contain information regarding the evidence provided against the defendant.

Defense

No information is available on her defense. In their open letter, the families of the prisoners noted that defendants were not given the opportunity to defend themselves in court. The same letter, rebutting the accusation that these prisoners (from inside the prison) had collaborated with armed members of the Mojahedin Organization in clashes with armed forces of the Islamic Republic, states that such claim “are false considering the circumstances in prisons; for our children faced most difficult conditions [in the prison, with] visitation rights of once every 15 days, each visitation lasting ten minutes through a telephone from behind the glass window, and were deprived of any connection with the outside world. We faced such conditions for seven years, which proves the truth of our claim.”

Judgment

The details of death sentence are not known. Based on the available information, Mr. Simin Azar Hedayat Monfared was executed in Shiraz during the mass execution of 1988, while a few months of her imprisonment remained.

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