August 26, 2018

At age 17, Tahereh Khorrami was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison by Iran’s authorities. After being imprisoned for years with many of her friends, some as young as 12, Tahereh and several others were released from prison. The rest as well as some who had been arrested again, were tortured and executed in the 1988 Prison Massacre in Iran.

In her testimony, Tahereh says that these victims from the massacre are buried in mass graves at Saleh Abad in Ilam, Iran. Like many other massacre survivors and families of victims, Tahereh laments the unmarked appearance of her loved ones’ final resting places.

Following the massacre in 1988, some 4,000-5,000 political prisoners are buried in 120 confirmed and suspected mass grave sites around Iran. Authorities’ decisions to bury victims in this manner deprived families of cultural burial and mourning rites and of their rights to truth and justice. Thirty years after this atrocity, many are still seeking truth, accountability, and redress with regards to these crimes against humanity.