What We Do
Our goal is to prepare for a peaceful and democratic transition in Iran and build a more just future in which citizens’ rights are respected and mass killings and crimes against humanity belong in the history books. The absence of transition does not justify inaction. In fact, transitions may not always allow time for reflection or preparation.
To achieve our goal, we have to confront and understand the past, draw attention to patterns of human rights violations, trigger reflection on human rights and democracy, influence the national discourse and engage victims and other citizens in a common endeavor, that is truth telling.
For ABC, every executed victim counts and staff are encouraged to work on groups of victims other than those they belong to or are familiar with. This all-inclusive perspective and work ethic ensures objectivity and lack of bias toward any particular victim group – a hallmark of ABC’s documentation work.
To do so, we:
- Document methodically and as objectively as we can every single execution and assassination and publish stories in Farsi and English with a focus on the right to life and the right to due process of law.
- Engage victims of human rights violations to tell their story as a first step to healing, echo their voices, and draw attention to impunity.
- Help Iranians remember their history and strengthen their will to confront the past.
- Promote human rights based values through translations of theoretical and practical tools, reports and advocacy.
Some of our key achievements in the last ten years:
- Established ourselves as a credible and reliable human rights group and gained broad-based support among diverse groups of Iranians and non-Iranian victims
- Documented thousands of names and hundreds of stories in two languages in our database Omid and accessible on our website
- Interviewed victims, and transcribed and translated scores of testimonies.
- Researched and published groundbreaking reports and expert opinion on human rights issues not covered by the mainstream press, such as 2 reports (one and two) on COVID-19 and prison conditions; The Massacre of Political Prisoners in Iran, 1988, Report of an Inquiry and Neither Free Nor Fair, Elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
- Mobilizing campaigns to bring visibility to the most at-risk, such as "Set Them Free", an effort calling for the release of political prisoners during a global pandemic.
- Translated tens of human rights reports of other national and international organizations.
- Created and maintain the most comprehensive Farsi-English electronic archives of books, articles, memoirs, letters, documents, and information that shed light on the violation of human rights and furthers the knowledge, understanding, dissemination, and implementation of human rights and democracy in Iran.
- Maintain a unique and extensive database of thousands floggings sentences issued in Iran.