Iran: 1. First Iraqi bombardment of Tehran; 2. Treatment of political prisoners released from jails

1.        No information concerning the first air-raid on Tehran by Iraq is among the sources currently available to the IRBDC. Two sources consulted mention Iraqi raids on Iranian cities during 1984, but do not specify the date when Iraq first bombed Iran. However, it should be noted that the Iraqi announcement of the first attacks on Iranian civilian targets named 6 February 1984 as the date when seven Iranian towns and cities (not Tehran) would be bombed (CARDRI 233). Another author, Shahram Chubin, mentions that the bombardment of Iranian civilian targets occurred during 1984 and that attacks on Tehran were in evidence in 1985 (Chubin 61). Further information on Iraqi air-raids on Tehran is not currently available to the IRBDC.

2.             Attached, please find the results of a database search on the treatment of political prisoners after their release from jail. One article, "The Killing Fields of Iran", notes the large number of political executions of members of the People's Mojahedin of Iran over the past decade (Hughes). The author cites Amnesty International as stating that

 Some [of the political prisoners executed] had been held for years without trial. Others had been sentenced to prison terms ranging from several months to life, following trials in the early 1980s for disturbing the peace or distributing leaflets at political rallies.... it has been informed of cases of former prisoners having been rearrested and summarily executed (Hughes).

In a broadcast picked up by the British Broadcast Corporation, "Iran in Brief, Anti-Khomeyni Radio Reports Decision on Executions", it is asserted that the Islamic Republic regime

 detained and imprisoned a number of people who had returned to Iran from the United States and Europe upon receiving safety letters [Persian amannameh] from Hoseyn Ali Montazeri and his office. Reportedly, some of these prisoners have already been executed, and the remainder are also threatened with execution or confiscation of property (BBC 23 January 1989).

The same broadcast reports that a decision was taken to execute Mojahedin members taken prisoner after attacking Ilam and Gilan-e Gharb. Allegedly, these were prisoners who

 had previously been in the Islamic Republic's prisons and were released after repenting. Therefore, we do not trust other prisoners who are now in prisons and who have either completed or are on the verge of completing their prison terms. We believe that they will immediately begin to act against the regime following their release.

In addition, please find attached a recent paper produced by the Danish Refugee Council entitled "General Background Information: Iran" (translation 9 February 1990). This document notes that the "Iranian authorities began systematic executions of Mujahedin activists and sympathisers in Western Iran" following an armed offensive by the National Liberation Army (the military section of the Mujahedin movement) near the end of July 1988 (Kjaer 5).

Further corroboration for the above information is currently unavailable to the IRBDC.

Attachments:

-               Chubin, Shahram and C. Tripp. Iran and Iraq at War. London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 1988 (61-62);

-               Committee Against Repression and For Democratic Rights in Iraq (CARDRI). Saddam's Iraq; Revolution or Reaction? London: Zed Books Ltd., 1986 (233-234);

-               Hughes, John. "The Killing Fields of Iran". The Christian Science Monitor, 25 January 1989;

-               British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). "Iran in Brief: Anti-Khomeyni Radio Reports Decision on Execution", Summary of World Broadcasts [Voice of the Kaviyani Banner of Iran 20 January 1989], 23 January 1989.

-               Kim Kjaer. General Background Information: Iran, Danish Refugee Council, (23 November 1989) Translation 9 February 1990.