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Wednesday
April 18, 2001

National Registry of Political Violence in Iran

After reading the excerpts of from "Ayatollah Khalkhali's memoirs" in iranian.com and reading only one side of the story, I feel the need for creation of a website for "National Registry of Political Violence in Iran." This could be a virtual memorial site for all the people who lost their loved ones to know that so many others also share their pain and sorrow. It is a shame if we let only the "victors" such as Ayatollah Khalkhali write our history.

I feel that the Iranian community all over the world should recognize the heavy price in terms of human lives that we paid in the last few decades in order for us to come to terms that we have to learn to live and respect each other, regardless of our views. Many people claim that 50,000 and up to 100,000 people were murdered during the revolution and as many as 100,000 to 200,000 people were systematically executed afterward.

However, nobody has exact statistics; and the numbers without any name attached to them, does not show the real face of the tragedy. We all know a relative, a classmate or maybe a neighbor who has been killed because of political affiliation or even alleged political sympathy. Only if those memories are preserved, we have a chance not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

We have to remember, this is not a contest to find out who killed more or who is less of an evil, but to have a deeper understanding of the things that went wrong with our society. The purpose is also not to fix a blame on anyone in particular, but for the people to see and judge for themselves.

The proposed site, should be open for everyone to register the name, date and situation under which any of the political murders in the last three decades had occurred. It should include all political victims regardless of political affiliation, religion or cause.

So, in that site, people can register such figures as Gholam Reza Takhti, Samad Behrangi, Khosro Golsorkhi, Hasan Ali Mansoor, Navvab Safavi, Amir Abbas Hoveida, people burned in the Abadan Cinema Rex, people murdered during Ayatollah Khomeini's "15th Khordad)" uprising (1963), people killed in Tehran's Jaleh Square (1978) and all other occasions during the revolution, Ayatollah Beheshti and "72 Martyrs", Rajavi, Bahonar, Jazani, Poyan, Sharif, Kianouri, Fardoost,.... all political appointee of Pahlavi regime and actual or alleged SAVAK agents who were summarily executed, those of Mojahedin members and sympathizers who were murdered in prisons during the first four years of revolution, recent murdered politicians, writers and journalists, to name a few.

Even the names of all people killed during the 8-year war with Iraq should be added to this site so we learn the full magnitude of this tragedy.

It is obvious that at the beginning, many people from extreme right or left will try to sabotage the site for their own political gains by submitting phony names and situation. But, there are ways to verify names, dates an stories.

Reza Reza

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