Sisters Unveil Database of Iranian Victims

It's chilling to think that the government that has executed so many for their revolution, is now going to posses nuclear weapons. The sisters who made this database have compelling reasons, some of them personal and close to home. Here are a few excerpts:

...On Friday, the two sisters unveiled what is believed to be the largest database dedicated to those executed under the Islamic regime. It is the result of years of examining human rights reports, media accounts, memoirs and other records. Of the more than 9,400 cases catalogued, one has a special place in the sisters' hearts: that of their father, Abdorrahman Boroumand, whose leadership in resistance movements is believed to have led to his murder.

The Boroumand sisters, who live in Washington, D.C., hope their work will serve as a tool for Iranians who want to deal with the country's history. The database's release coincides with the 25th anniversary of the release of 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days after the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran...

In the early days of the revolution, the Boroumand sisters, who were studying in France, had great hopes for the new government. But time spent in Iran, where they heard accounts of speedy trials and mass executions, disillusioned them.

"A sense of shame and guilt overwhelmed me," Ladan Boroumand, 48, said of those days.

For years afterward, while living in France, their family was involved in Iranian resistance efforts. In 1991, their father, a social democrat who was a leader of the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance, was stabbed to death in his Paris apartment building, presumably by agents of the Iranian government.

"You theoretically know that people suffer," Roya Boroumand said. "But when it happens to you, you feel it, you sleep with it, you wake up with it."

A decade after his death, the women, both of whom have doctorates in history, decided to harness the power of the Internet — and its popularity in Iran — to set up the database...

You can read the entire article HERE.

I remember reading, years ago, how the Ayatollah Khomeini formed a coaliton of groups to overthrow the Shah, and then afterward, how he systematically started to eliminate the people who's backs he had used to climb to power on, so he could establish the Totalitarian Theocracy that rules Iran today.

The database itself is... sad. There are descriptions of the people, and brief descriptions of what was known about them and why and how they were killed. What horrible ways to kill people, and what sick reasons. These are the stories of what was done, by the very people who rule Iran now and who strive to possess nuclear weapons.

You can vist the database HERE.

Related link: Iran’s new President has a past mired in controversy.