Whereas over a 4-month period in 1988, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran carried out the barbaric mass executions of thousands of political prisoners and many unrelated political groups; Whereas according to a report by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, the massacre was carried out pursuant to a fatwa, or religious decree, issued by then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that targeted the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI), also known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK); Whereas according to a November 2, 2007, report by Amnesty International, between 27 July 1988 and the end of that year, thousands of political prisoners [in Iran], including prisoners of conscience, were executed in prisons nationwide ; Whereas the killings were carried out on the orders of a judge, an official from the Ministry of Intelligence, and a state prosecutor, known to the prisoners as Death Commissions which undertook proceedings in a manner designed to eliminate the regime’s opponents; Whereas those personally responsible for these mass executions include senior officials serving in the current Government of Iran; Whereas prisoners were reportedly brought before the commissions and briefly questioned about their political affiliation, and any prisoner who refused to renounce his or her affiliation with groups perceived as enemies by the regime was then taken away for execution; Whereas the victims included thousands of people, including teenagers and pregnant women, imprisoned merely for participating in peaceful street protests and for possessing political reading material, many of whom had already served or were currently serving prison sentences; Whereas prisoners were executed in groups, some in mass hangings and others by firing squad, with their bodies disposed of in mass graves; Whereas according to Amnesty International, the majority of those killed were supporters of the PMOI, but hundreds of members and supporters of other political groups … were also among the execution victims