Report of the Seminar on the Investigation of the Killing of Political Prisoners – Stockholm
A two-day seminar on the twentieth anniversary of the massacre of political prisoners was held in Stockholm on August 22 and 23 in Swedish, English and Persian to examine the massacres of the 1960s. The first day of the seminar was held at Stockholm University in English and Swedish, and the second day was held in Persian at the Husbyterf Assembly Hall. The speakers on the first day of the seminar were Ahmad Mousavi, former political prisoner and author of the book “Good Night Comrade”, Hans Linde, Swedish MP from the Left Party, Kaveh Shahrooz, New York-based lawyer, Payam Akhavan, lawyer and professor at the University of Montreal, Susan Bahar, editor of the children’s and youth magazine Darug and head of the Association for the Abolition of Child Labor, Maria Mudig, a well-known Swedish writer and member of the Swedish PEN Association, and Mitra Lager, former political prisoner and author of the book “God Wants You to Die”. Shahla Talebi, a former political prisoner and professor at the University of Arizona, and Drury Dyke, head of Amnesty International’s Middle East team, were also invited to the seminar. Shahla Talebi was unable to attend the seminar due to problems with her travel documents two days before the trip. Parts of her speech, titled “Love and Death in Prison Letters,” were read on the first day of the seminar by the program’s host, Kurdish activist and expert Ahmad Eskandari. Drury Dyke sent a message to the seminar. Parts of her message, which called for the prosecution of the oppressors of the Iranian people, the commanders and perpetrators of the massacres of the 1960s, especially the killing of political prisoners in the summer of 1967, were read by the seminar host.
The speakers discussed and examined the political and social contexts of the killing of political prisoners, especially in the summer of 2018, from an empirical, research and legal perspective, and emphasized points such as creating legal and political backgrounds for prosecuting the perpetrators of the Iranian regime on charges of “crimes against humanity”, collecting and classifying documents and evidence of these killings, and trying to record these crimes in the world’s public opinion and international documents. The first day of the seminar was widely welcomed by Swedish, Iranian and foreign students, journalists, psychologists, social activists and Swedish lawyers. A delegation from Amnesty International Stockholm and a high-ranking delegation from the British human rights organization Fund Appeal Conscience of Prisoners participated in the seminar.
The presence of the younger generation in this seminar, which constituted the majority of the attendees, and the meticulous and curious follow-up of the seminar’s discussions, underscore the fact that global public opinion, especially the younger generation, is thirsty for information and it is important for them to know what is happening in Iran and what fate the Iranian people have suffered.
The second day of the seminar was held in the Hos Bi Teraf conference hall in Persian. The speakers on the second day of the seminar were Ahmad Mousavi, Hamid Haghshenas (former political prisoner), Susan Bahar, Kaveh Shahroz, and Mitra Lagar.
The discussions of the first day of the seminar continued more or less on the second day of the seminar. The discussions in some areas, especially the analysis of the conditions under which the massacres of the 1960s took place, gained more depth. At the beginning of the second day of the seminar, Mehdi Memarpouri reported on the work of the first day of the seminar to the attendees. The moderator of the second day of the seminar was Shahin Poya. Photos, the seminar film and the text of the lectures will soon be published in three languages: Persian, Swedish and English and will be available to the public. The Persian text of the lectures will be published on the Farsi website of the Center and the Swedish and English text of the lectures will be published on the English website of the Center. The program was broadcast directly from the Internet (Paltalk), but unfortunately, halfway through, due to a breakdown in the Internet line at the seminar venue, the broadcast of the program encountered problems and was completely interrupted. Attempts to set up the Internet were not possible and a large number of seminar enthusiasts who were present in the room were unable to follow the program. In the near future, an attempt will be made to broadcast the audio version of the seminar via Paltalk.
On the first day of the seminar, Gisso Shakeri and Chilean singer Beatrice performed a few songs together, and on the second day of the seminar, Beatrice and her musical colleagues, the band D-Rebel and Shamim, and her recording partners, Yara and Massoud, performed music.
The documentary film “The Tree That Remembers,” directed by Masoud Rauf, was screened on both days of the seminar.
The seminar did not issue any specific resolutions. The conclusions of the discussions were very methodical and eloquent, and each one was a resolution in itself. Alongside the seminar, an exhibition of Khavaran’s photographs was held, which was well received by the seminar participants, especially students from Swedish law universities from different countries.
The two-day Stockholm seminar received extensive coverage in the Swedish and Iranian press and media. More than ten Persian-language radio stations in Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg, including Radio Solidarity, Payvand, Hamsafar, Iran Air Online, Chakavak and Sade Azadi, regularly broadcast news of the seminar. Radio Pajhwok, the Persian service of the Swedish National Radio, which is also heard in Norway, Denmark and Finland, spoke with participants and organizers of the seminar before and after the seminar and broadcast news and reports on the seminar. Deutsche Welle radio covered the seminar and interviewed one of the organizers of the seminar. The Swedish mass-circulation newspapers Dagens Nyheter, Sönske Dagbladet, Aftonbladet, several local Swedish newspapers, the Swedish weekly Mana, the English newspaper The Guardian, the websites of the Swedish Left Party, the Green Party, the Swedish Socialist Party, the Swedish Communist Party, the ABF Democratic Workers’ Organization in Stockholm, Amnesty International’s Stockholm office, the Fund Appeal Conscience of Prisoners website in the UK, the largest and most-viewed Swedish news website News Desk, several Stockholm University student websites, the Amnesty Press newspaper, and highly-viewed Iranian websites, including the Stockholmian news website, published reports on the killing of political prisoners and the seminar.
The description of the events of the killing of political prisoners in the 1960s, posters, and news of the seminar were widely distributed at all universities in Stockholm and emailed to several thousand students, lawyers, political activists, labor activists, human rights activists, journalists, women’s movement activists, anti-war activists, and others in Sweden, Iran, the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Canada, Norway, Palestine, Chile, and mothers in Argentina.
Iranian Political Prisoners Association (in Exile) – Swedish Branch
August 26, 2008 equals September 26, 2008