A GROUP of politicians has called for an international commission to be set up to investigate the massacre in summer 1988 of more than 30,000 political prisoners in Iran, with a view to prosecuting those involved.

The call came in Paris, base of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the country’s opposition-in-exile, during an exhibition highlighting the horrors of the massacre, from Paris Mayor Jean-François Legaret.

He was joined by several of his mayoral colleagues, Yves Bonnet, former head of France’s domestic anti-terrorism organisation and former Scottish MEP Struan Stevenson, president of European Iraqi Freedom Association.

Stevenson condemned a trip by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to Iran and said both Europe and the UN should demand an inquiry into the massacre.

“[Iranian President Hassan] Rouhani has been hailed in the West as a moderate and a reformist, despite the fact that more than 3500 people, including 80 women, have been executed during the four years he has been in office, catapulting Iran into pole position as the world’s number one state executioner per capita,” said Stevenson.

“Three days before Mogherini arrived in Tehran, Amnesty International published a 94-page report highlighting the ‘web of oppression’ that pervades Iran and detailing the catastrophic human rights situation in the country.

“The French government and the EU should also be demanding a full United Nations inquiry into the 1988 massacre, with Khamenei, [supreme leader Sayyid Ali Hosseini] Rouhani and their clique of killer clerics indicted for crimes against humanity and brought for trial before the international courts in The Hague.”

Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the Iranian Resistance, said: “The people of Iran want to end the impunity of those in charge of the massacre and hold them accountable. This has turned into the Iranian people’s most important political demand from the clerical regime. We urge the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to set up an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the 1988 massacre.”