(August 10, 2021) – Today, the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) welcomed the start of the trial against Hamid Noury – a former assistant prosecutor alleged to have committed war crimes and murder as part of the 1988 prison massacre in Iran – in a Swedish courtroom.
Noury was arrested by Swedish authorities in November 2019, and indicted by the Swedish prosecutor in July 2021 for his involvement in the killings of thousands of political prisoners in Iran’s prisons in the summer of 1988. The proceedings are the first-ever trial against an individual for core international crimes committed by representatives of the Islamic Republic, and the first time someone has been criminally charged in a legally-binding court in relation to the 1988 executions. This is made possible by the exercise of pure universal jurisdiction by the Swedish authorities over core international crimes such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, enabling them to investigate and prosecute crimes regardless of any territorial or nationality links to Sweden.
Given the significance of the proceedings, IHRDC will make court monitoring reports of the trial available for a Persian-language audience inside and outside of Iran. While the trial against Noury is happening miles away from the site of the events in question, IHRDC hopes to make this justice process more accessible for millions of Iranians whose primary fluency is not in English or Swedish.
To read the first court report in English from Civil Rights Defenders—a global human rights organization based in Stockholm—click here. To read in Persian, click here.