(I posted a link to this article on Facebook below, but a lucky few cannot read Facebook, so here is the article supplied by Shadi herself for publication here)

By: Shadi Paveh

Amidst the Iranian Revolution, The Shah reluctantly left Iran on Jan 16, 1979, hoping to reclaim his throne upon his quick return. Instead, many of his loyal high ranking officers, politicians and secret agents faced the firing squad by the hundreds under the new Islamic Republic (IR) founded by Ayatollah Khomeini; an austere fundamentalist Muslim clergy whose intolerance for opposition and minority groups covered Iran in an impenetrable blanket of repression for the next thirty three years and sent tens of thousands to the gallows.

In a speech addressed to the people, Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic (IR); the man of God who had extensively criticized the Shah’s human rights violations, declared all who opposed or criticized the Islamic government, “Enemies of God”,  and assured their elimination. Along with political dissidents, the government put in place over one hundred capital offences which included drug trafficking, adultery and homosexuality. This brought forth an unprecedented wave of arrests and executions in the ensuing years. In order to justify the executions of political opponents to the public, the officials started using antiquated torture methods to coerce dictated confessions. Since all mandates of the previous regime were replaced with strict Islamic laws, the old Judges were ousted in lieu of Islamic clergy who had no training in the field of law. Therefore, the fate of the accused solely rested on the residing Judge’s discretion, which operated the vast majority of trials in absence of lawyers, witnesses or evidence.  This resulted in the rapid deterioration of the judiciary system, and permanently dissolved lawful trials.

The first victims of the IR, or Enemies of God, were the people of the province of Kurdistan, the largest minority group in Iran, who had dutifully fought for the revolution in the hopes of achieving regional autonomy denied them under the previous regime. Naturally they resisted the control of the newly formed government, which incensed the Ayatollah.  After failed negotiations, the Ayatollah angrily issued a fatwa (Islamic edict) to crush the Kurds and sent 110.000 troops complete with heavy artillery, fighter jets and armed helicopters to Kurdistan. The fighting was so intense that residents were forced to flee into the harsh mountains for survival. A group of volunteer surgeons and medical staff rushed from the capital to help the wounded but within days of their arrival they were put against the outside wall of the hospital and shot. Kurdish men were executed dozens at a time; a photograph of which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1980.

Continue Reading →