August 30, which is 8 Shahrivar every year, is recognized by the United Nations as the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance; a day for remembering the fate of those who are detained or abducted, but whose captors do not disclose where they are being held or what happens to them.

The United Nations says this practice has, in some cases, become a tool to suppress opponents and instill fear in society.

The Islamic Republic is one of the governments whose record of enforced disappearances has repeatedly drawn attention from human rights bodies.

The most prominent example is the massacre of political prisoners in the summer of 1988. Amnesty International says thousands of prisoners were first disappeared and then secretly executed, and that many of their bodies were never returned to their families.

In an interview with the TV station “Iran Wire,” Dr. “Hassan Naib Hashem,” a doctor and human rights activist in Vienna, talks about this day and the Islamic Republic’s record in forcibly or coercively disappearing its opponents.