A UN Special Rapporteur released final findings Monday pressing for an international accountability mechanism to investigate and prosecute individuals involved in the mass arrest and killing of thousands during the 1980s.

In the findings, Javaid Rehman, the Special Rapporteur for the Islamic Republic of Iran, set out how the violations of human rights committed during the 1980s amount to atrocity crimes and crimes against humanity. According to the final report, the atrocities involved crimes against humanity committed against thousands of political opponents and genocide against individuals with different religious beliefs. Rehman focuses on executions during the 1981-1982 and 1988 “massacres,” which involved severe breaches of human rights and targeted marginalized communities, including women and children.

In 1988, the Iranian government executed thousands of political prisoners without due process, targeting those imprisoned for political activities after unfair trials. These executions were overseen by a three-person committee, including future Justice Minister Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi. Despite protests from Ayatollah Montazeri, the executions continued, with estimates ranging from 2,800 to 4,481 deaths. The government has never acknowledged these events, and families continue to seek information about their loved ones, facing ongoing obstruction and evidence destruction.

The Special Rapporteur emphasized the necessity of an investigative and accountability mechanism to conduct investigations impartially and transparently under international law and to find and preserve the evidence necessary to prosecute perpetrators in the future. The focus on the atrocity crimes of the 1980s is based on the severity of the criminal breaches of human rights and the nature of enforced disappearances. Under international law, as long as the perpetrators continue to conceal the facts and circumstances of the disappeared individuals, enforced disappearance is an ongoing crime.

Rehman observed Iran’s failure to uphold state accountability and justice and the extent to which the circumstances have been causing “mental and psychological trauma” to the victims’ families and Iran’s ongoing human rights situation.

In a testimony and written statement, a witness stated the following:

I wish to convey to the United Nations that the atrocities of the 1980s do not merely belong to the past or to the abstract—they directly affect individuals like myself and now, decades later, continue to impact my daughter. Our suffering stems directly from the permanent crimes committed by the Islamic Republic, and these government-sanctioned atrocities persist to this day. It is crucial to recognize that the legacy of such violations is a living history, carried in the lives of those like us, who continue to face the impact of these unresolved injustices.

The perpetrators have yet to be brought to justice, and the Iranian government continues to deny any accountability or existence of the atrocity crimes.