Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa (or religious decree) in July 1988 ordering the execution of members and supporters of the main opposition group PMOI (MEK) who remained loyal to the organization, including those who had already been tried and were serving their prison sentences.

The following is the full translation of Khomeini’s fatwa ordering the 1988 massacre in Iran:

In the Name of God,

the Compassionate, the Merciful,

As the treacherous Monafeqin [Mojahedin] do not believe in Islam and what they say is out of deception and hypocrisy, and as their leaders have confessed that they have become renegades, and as they are waging war on God, and as they are engaging in classical warfare in the western, the northern and the southern fronts, and as they are collaborating with the Baathist Party of Iraq and spying for Saddam against our Muslim nation, and as they are tied to the World Arrogance, and in light of their cowardly blows to the Islamic Republic since its inception, it is decreed that those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain steadfast in their support for the Monafeqin [Mojahedin], are waging war on God and are condemned to execution.

The task of implementing the decree in Tehran is entrusted to Hojjatol-Islam Nayyeri, the religious judge, Mr. Eshraqi, the Tehran prosecutor, and a representative of the Intelligence Ministry. Even though a unanimous decision is better, the view of a majority of the three must prevail. In prisons in the provinces, the views of a majority of a trio consisting of the religious judge, the revolutionary prosecutor, and the Intelligence Ministry representative must be obeyed. It is naive to show mercy to those who wage war on God. The decisive way in which Islam treats the enemies of God is among the unquestionable tenets of the Islamic regime. I hope that with your revolutionary rage and vengeance toward the enemies of Islam, you would achieve the satisfaction of the Almighty God. Those who are making the decisions must not hesitate, nor show any doubt or be concerned with details. They must try to be “most ferocious against infidels.” To have doubts about the judicial matters of revolutionary Islam is to ignore the pure blood of martyrs.

Ruhollah Moussavi Khomeini

Khomeini decrees execution of all “steadfast” Mojahedin supporters in Iran’s prisons

Download PDF version of Khomeini’s fatwa