Iranian political prisoner Sediqeh Moradi has smuggled out a letter from behind bars in Tehran urging international human rights defenders to seek justice over the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran. Ms. Moradi, 56, is currently serving a 10-year prison term in the notorious Evin Prison.
She was first arrested on 14 June 1981 and subjected to torture and detention for nine months over her activities in support of the main opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK). She was arrested again in 1985 and kept in prison until 1989. She married soon afterwards and had a daughter. She is a living witness to the 1988 massacre of political prisoners by Iran’s regime. She was arrested a third time in April 2011 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The following is the English translation of the text of her open letter:
5 November 2016
In the name of God,
With countless salutes to all free peoples,
I, Sediqeh Moradi, was born in 1960. In 1981 I was arrested on the charge of supporting the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran. I was first transferred to Ghezelhessar Prison and then to Evin Prison.
During this time I witnessed how they would separate some of the prisoners who were with us and take them before the firing squads, and at nights we would learn of their execution by counting the number of coups de graces that were fired.
I was again arrested in 1985 and I spent the duration of my sentence in Evin Prison.
In 1988 I was a witness to the massacre of the prisoners, which lasted from late July until mid-September of that year. A large number of prisoners were separated in the ward that I was in and were taken to be executed.
These were the friends who wished us farewell and never returned; dear friends such as Azadeh Habib, Ashraf Fadaii, Monireh Rajavi, Mansoureh Moslehi, Parvin Haeri, Mojgan Sorbi, Maryam Golzadeh-Ghafouri and many others whose names I do not recall given the large number of arrests that there were at the time.
I was witness to them executing people whose sentences had finished and or a person who was not mentally balanced. In one of the wards there was only one survivor and everyone else had been executed. The memories of those days will never leave my mind, and those events and images can never be forgotten.
No words can express that level of abomination and foulness.
Later on I was once again arrested for a third time in 2011 and I was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in a kangaroo court by Judge Moqiseh.
I have an 18-year-old daughter, and it’s been five years that I have been kept away from her, and I am kept in prison at the age of 56 despite all sorts of illnesses and physical problems.
As one of the witnesses who was in prison during the 1988 massacre, I urge all human rights organizations and institutions and all people who pursue the truth, freedom and humanity to take legal action against the perpetrators of this massacre for the lost rights of the innocent people who were executed in 1988 and to not let until a final resolution is achieved.
Sediqeh Moradi
Evin Prison