UK lawmaker joins call for investigation into Iran’s 1988 massacre
Matthew Offord, a Member of Parliament from the United Kingdom, has joined nearly 200 cross-party MPs and members of the House of Lords to demand an international investigation into human rights abuses in Iran, The Times Series reported.
At a conference in the House of Commons on November 17, MPs, Lords and British religious leaders expressed their concerns over executions in Iran, including public hangings and execution of juvenile offender and women, the report said.
Matthew Offord, Conservative MP for Hendon (London), was among the politicians who spoke at the conference, expressing his concerns over Britain’s business relationship with the regime in Iran.
He said: “The current UK policy on pursing business opportunities in Iran in the post-nuclear deal era risks empowering the Revolutionary Guards.
“This paramilitary arm of the Supreme Leader is the major force in exporting terror out of Iran and suppressing any popular dissent, controlling close to 70 per cent of Iran’s economy.”
The conference called for an investigation into the events of the summer of 1988, when the regime's founder Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the massacre of some 30,000 political prisoners in the space of a few months.
The report added:
The dead were buried secretly in mass graves and the officials responsible for the massacre currently hold some of the highest positions in the regime."
Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), addressed the conference in a video message.
She said: “The regime preserves its power by these atrocities, even as the anti-government protests spread across the country.
“If the international community had not remained silent and passive in this regard, letting the criminals evade justice, the wave of executions and repression in Iran could not have continued to date.”
According to the UN and international organisations like Amnesty International, the Iranian authorities carried out over 1000 executions last year.
In a report published on January 26 this year, Amnesty International listed 73 executions of juvenile offenders since 2005 and warned “at least 160 juvenile offenders are currently on death row” in violation of international law and conventions prohibiting the execution of juveniles.
