Revolution Books is very excited to host Nasser Mohajer. Voices of a Massacre speaks deeply to the nature of the Iranian regime and to the current moment when the courageous mass uprising in Iran, which was sparked by the September 2022 murder of Mahsa Amini for “improper hijab,” is facing extreme repression, including torture, secret trials, and executions. The International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners Now is a co-sponsor of this event.
About the Book
In July 1988, the brutal eight-year war between Iraq and Iran ended. Over the next two months, Ayatollah Khomeini ordered political prisoners to be secretly brought before a tribunal panel, which became known as the Death Commission. They were not told what was happening and that one “wrong” answer about their faith or political affiliation would send them straight to the gallows.
Thousands of men and women were condemned to death. Through eyewitness accounts of survivors, research by scholars and memories of children and spouses of the deceased, Voices of a Massacre reconstructs the events of that bloody summer. Over 30 years later, the Iranian government has still not officially acknowledged that they ever took place.
This is an urgent and belated book that draws on multiple archives to establish the systematic death-dealing of the late 1980s in Iran, as well as the unforgivable and complicitous silence on this period of lethal violence. That history is established through many voices and genres, all of which constitute a living testimonial, a collective act of mourning, and a resounding call for justice.
—Judith Butler, professor, author, philosopher
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About the Author
Nasser Mohajer is an independent scholar of modern Iranian history, author of many books and articles on contemporary Iran, including on the prison systems, the women's movements for equal rights and histories of the Iranian left. He currently resides in Paris.
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