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There's need to delve into Marjane Satrapi's assertion in her "Persepolis" graphic novel that the event was involved with the Marxist Mujahedeen Khalq going over to enemy Iraq in the 8 year war, then invading Iran from Iraq, during war time, so the regime felt threatened into the executions. It's as if you were a Texan, a major political force went over to Santa Ana, then invaded back from Mexico; would you regard them as political prisoners, or as traitors? It's more complicated than the simplistic vision of the West.

Satrapi asserts that a majority of the population didn't support the Mujahedeen Khalq's invasion from Iraq, fighting for Sadaam Hussein, against their own Iranian compatriots, who in the final death toll suffered perhaps 750,000 mortality on the Iranian side, in contrast to the 30,000 imprisoned intellectuals, perhaps largely Mujahedeen Khalq. Americans not having suffered invasion for 200 years -- think of the depth of our feelings even today over the 750,000 death toll in the Civil War -- still it may be hard for us to understand the desperation, not only of the government, but of the average people during the Iran-Iraq war. https://tinyurl.com/2btzdvyr - The Complete Persepolis, focused on this event.

Satrapi (a child clad in white in the sample, below), seems sympathetic to the anti-government side, often expressing a seeming agnostic viewpoint, certainly not Islamist.