The Judgement

Judgement of People´s International Court of Iran Tribunal issued on 5 February 2013

This outstanding feat is the accomplishment of a working group including a number of the families of those who lost their lives in the 1980’s executions of political prisoners, as well as some of the surviving political prisoners themselves, along with political activists including workers, students, women’s rights activists, children’s’ rights activists, lawyers and Human rights activists.

Beginning on an international scale in the autumn of 2007, this group, working tirelessly for over five years and with the help of many people living in Iran and outside Iran and the Diaspora collected documents, secured funds for court expenses and myriad other forms of support, was able to bring the state of Iran to judgment, and this prior to the regime’s demise or transition. Amassing nearly a hundred witness statements, the guilty verdict here was the first in history achieved not by governments or political organizations but by ordinary people themselves along with internationally recognized judges and prosecutors.
Now, three months after the Hague hearing took place, the final judgment has confirmed the interim judgment condemning the Islamic Republic of Iran as a whole according to both international law and international customary law.

That this judgment was accomplished by expanding the concept of crimes against humanity to include not just individuals but states as well, makes this an achievement not for Iran alone, but for the rest of the world, a general expansion of international customary law. The tribunal and its judgment, however unofficial in its authority, thus becomes a document for potential future struggles. Having, moreover, centered this quest for justice and the means for achieving it in the hands of justice seeking people, this judgment belongs to all those who have suffered grave injustice and pain in the world.

It is to be hoped that both Iranian and other international justice activists will take the next steps toward justice and equality, including the spreading of people’s courts to the rest of the world and other actions leading to the international recognition of the rights of people against oppressive states.

The judgment of the Iran tribunal court consists of 51 pages and 170 paragraphs and will be translated into Farsi and made available to Farsi speakers in due course.