Abbas Amanat

And they were given quick summary sentences which meant execution.

So something between probably 6,000 to 8,000 were executed in a matter of a month or two months, something like that.

Mostly in Tehran, but also in provinces.

And that remained an extraordinary trauma for the families, for those who had these kids.

They're all young, all young.

So this remains very much a kind of original sin of the Islamic Republic that cannot get rid of.

And it's in people's memories.

They didn't allow them, even the families, to go and mourn their dead in an official cemetery which they created for them.

Now the latest thing is that they put a huge concrete wall around it so nobody would be able to get into it.

So these all part of this extraordinary level of, level of atrocity, brutality, that you see that the regime who claimed that it comes with the morality of religion and Islam to bring back the justice and be more,

in a sense, kind to people, ended up with what it is in the memory of many of the people in Iran.

So developing these fascistic tendencies.

Very much so.

Destroying minorities.

Baha'i is one of them.

hundreds of Baha'is were, without any reason, without any involvement, were picked up and executed, their properties were taken over, their rights were taken away from them, even up to this day.

This is the largest, by the way, religious minority in Iraq.

So you would see that in many areas,

This acts very much as beyond authoritarian.

It's a kind of really a fascistic regime.