Iranians Testify to the Mullahs’ Crimes

The Iranian people have testified on Twitter to the abuses and atrocities of the Iranian regime over the past four decades, using a hashtag that literally translates to “I testify”.

The campaign, which began on October 2, has seen hundreds of Iranians talking about violations of their most basic human rights by the regime, from property seizures to execution of relatives to torture to massacres.

Many also spoke about the recent execution of wrestling champion and protester Navid Afkari, who was the subject of an international campaign to spare his life and denied a final family visit, because the campaign began in support of his cellmate – Shahin Naseri – who testified in court that Afkari was tortured into making false confessions. Naseri was threatened in court and moved to an unknown location, with his lawyer later saying that he was at Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz.

Here are just some of the most striking tweets that were posted in the past five days.

Shahnaz Akmali tweeted about her son, Mostafa Karim Beigi, being killed by security forces in the 2009 protests, before being secretly buried, while her daughter Maryam tweeted about Afkari’s execution, the torture of his two brothers, and Naseri’s testimony.

Haniye, the sister of political prisoner Atena Daemi, spoke about her sister’s “brutal arrest”, while “Javad” wrote about the death of a 14-year-old  Kurdish border porter (known as a Kolbar). He said that Farhad Khosravi died in December from hypothermia after getting caught in a snowstorm while trying to escape a Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) ambush.

While Kamran talked about the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, mostly members of the Iranian Resistance, which has still not been dealt with in a criminal court.

Of course, these are far from the only Iranians who have recently spoken out about the Iranian regime’s horrific crimes against the people. The Iranian Resistance held an online conference on September 5, with representatives from over 300 Iranian communities, who showed their support for regime change.

Hanifeh Khayeri, a researcher at Iran Human Rights Foundation in Sweden, said: “My mother was a member of the [Iranian Resistance]. She died during the [Resistance’s] Operation Eternal Light in 1988.”

While Reza Rahmani, a former political prisoner residing in the UK, spoke on behalf of the Association for the Support of Political Prisoners in Iran, noted that during his five years in prison in the 1980s, he saw the resistance showed by political prisoners under torture.

Azadeh Alemi, the spokeswoman for the Iranian community in France, said: “My uncle and his pregnant wife were killed by the mullahs’ regime. As a three-year-old kid, I witnessed the torture and pain of [Resistance] members and supporters in Iran.”

While Ahmad Hassani, from the Democratic Iran Association in Canada, explained that his brother was killed in the 1988 massacre at the age of 26.