Hedayatollah Hatami

Last updated April 06, 2019

Hedayatollah Hatami (c. 1914 - September 1988) was an Iranian man who was allegedly hanged during the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners. He was one of at 1,000 people identified in a United Nations Human Rights Commission Special Representative's Report entitled "Names and Particulars of Persons Allegedly Executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran from July–December 1988", published on January 26, 1989. Although information about Hatami's arrest and trial was never released, the U.N. report noted that political prisoners of all types were included in the executions: "Most of the alleged victims were members of the Mojahedin. However, members of the Tudeh Party, People's Fedaiyan Organization, Rahe Kargar, and Komala Organization and 11 mollahs were also said to be among the alleged victims." Hatami had been an active member of the Tudeh Party.

Iran, also called Persia and officially known as the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a country in Western Asia. With over 81 million inhabitants, Iran is the world's 18th most populous country. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km² (636,372 sq mi), it is the second largest country in the Middle East and the 17th largest in the world. Iran is bordered to the northwest by Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan, to the north by the Caspian Sea, to the northeast by Turkmenistan, to the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, and to the west by Turkey and Iraq. The country's central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, give it geostrategic importance. Tehran is the country's capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center.

The 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners was a series of state-sponsored execution of political prisoners across Iran, starting on 19 July 1988 and lasting for approximately five months. The majority of those killed were supporters of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, although supporters of other leftist factions, including the Fedaian and the Tudeh Party of Iran, were executed as well.

A political prisoner is someone imprisoned because they have opposed or criticized the government responsible for their imprisonment.

Life and work

Hatami was born in Tehran. After graduating from the Military College, he joined the Tudeh Party in 1942. He taught in the Military College for three years.

Tehran is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With a population of around 8.694 million in the city and 15 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most populous city in Iran and Western Asia, and has the second-largest metropolitan area in the Middle East. It is ranked 24th in the world by the population of its metropolitan area.

In 1945, a new government was established in Azerbaijan. This province was occupied by the Red Army, which declared it an independent state (to be supported by the Soviet Union).. In response, Hatami traveled to Tabriz, Azerbaijan, and played a significant role in the creation of an army for the Democrat Party. After the Democrat Party was defeated, he escaped the country and went to the Soviet Union. From 1947 to 1974, he was a member of the Science Academy for the Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan. After the Iranian Revolution, he returned to Iran and continued his writings as a member of the Central Committee of the Tudeh Party of Iran.

Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bounded by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, and has an 11 km long border with Turkey in the northwest.

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, frequently shortened to Red Army was the army and the air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and, after 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established immediately after the 1917 October Revolution. The Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. Beginning in February 1946, the Red Army, along with the Soviet Navy, embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces; taking the official name of "Soviet Army", until its dissolution in December 1991.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics, its government and economy were highly centralized. The country was a one-party state, governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Other major urban centres were Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Alma-Ata, and Novosibirsk. It spanned over 10,000 kilometres east to west across 11 time zones, and over 7,200 kilometres north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra, taiga, steppes, desert and mountains.

The Tudeh Party had been created in 1941. The Tudeh's ideology was Marxist–Leninist, and it supported policies of the former Soviet Union. The Party had played a major role in Iran's political scene until it was banned for the second time following the August 19, 1953 coup. After the 1979 Revolution, the Tudeh Party declared Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Republic regime revolutionaries and anti-imperialists, and actively supported the new government. Although the Party never opposed the Islamic Republic, it became the target of government attacks in 1982, and most of the Party's leaders and members were imprisoned.

1953 Iranian coup détat overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran

The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état, was the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favour of strengthening the monarchical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the United Kingdom and the United States, and the first United States covert action to overthrow a foreign government during peacetime.

Sayyid Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini, known in the Western world as Ayatollah Khomeini, was an Iranian politician and marja. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution that saw the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the end of 2,500 years of Persian monarchy. Following the revolution, Khomeini became the country's Supreme Leader, a position created in the constitution of the Islamic Republic as the highest-ranking political and religious authority of the nation, which he held until his death. He was succeeded by Ali Khamenei on 4 June 1989.

Arrest and detention

The circumstances of Hatami's arrest and detention are not known.

Trial

According to the book The Tudeh Martyrs, Mr. Hatami was tried and condemned to life imprisonment. No information about the trial, or the retrials that led to the executions, has become available.

The relatives of the political prisoners executed in 1988 refute the legality of the judicial process that resulted in thousands of executions throughout Iran. In an open letter to then-Minister of Justice Dr. Habibi in 1988, they argued that the official secrecy surrounding these executions was proof of their illegality. They noted that an overwhelming majority of these prisoners had been tried and sentenced to prison terms, which they either were serving or had completed when they were retried and sentenced to death.

Charges

No charge was ever levelled publicly against Hatami. In their letters to the Minister of Justice in 1988, and to the U.N. Special Rapporteur visiting Iran in February 2003, the families of the victims stated that authorities' accusations against the prisoners had included being "counter-revolutionary, anti-religion, and anti-Islam," as well as being "associated with military action or with various [opposition] groups based near the borders."

An edict by Ayatollah Khomeini - reproduced in the memoirs of Ayatollah Montazeri, his designated successor - corroborated these claims. In this edict, Ayatollah Khomeini referred to the members of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) as "hypocrites" who do not believe in Islam and "wage war against God." He also decreed that prisoners who still approved of the PMOI's positions were also "waging war against God" and should be sentenced to death.

Evidence of guilt

The report of his execution contains no evidence provided against Hatami.

Defence

In their open letter, the families of the prisoners stated that the defendants were not given the opportunity to defend themselves in court. Against the assertion that prisoners were associated with guerrillas operating near the borders, the families submitted the isolation of their relatives from the outside during their detention: "Our children lived in most difficult conditions. Visits were limited to 10 minutes behind a glass divider through a telephone every two weeks. We witnessed, over the past seven years, that they were denied access to anything that would have allowed them to establish contacts outside their prisons' walls." Under such conditions, the families argued, it would be impossible for these prisoners to engage with political groups outside Iran, as the authorities claimed.

Death

No specific information is available about Hatami's death sentence. He was hanged in September 1988, at age 74.

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References

The Tudeh Martyrs (2001) by The Tudeh Party of Iran Publications
Memories by Mohammad Rayshahri (the Chief Judge at the time) published by the Center for Islamic Revolution Documents.

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