As Tehran prepares for the Sham presidential elections on 18 June, victims of the regime’s brutality have spoken out against torture and abuse by candidate Ebrahim Raisi, the current head of the judiciary. He is accused of being a key figure in the massacre of Iranian political prisoners in 1988. Raisi was a member of the so-called “Death Commission” in the prisons of Evin and Gohardasht.
Raisi was a prosecutor who sentenced people to death, according to eyewitness accounts. During the 1988 executions, he was only 21 years old.
According to Iranian opposition activists, Raisi worked as a “handyman” for then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini and was dispatched to purge areas such as Lorestan, Kermanshah, and Semnan.
Members of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI / MEK Iran), have now described the atrocities they suffered at the hands of Raisi.
At a press conference on Tuesday attended by Arab News, Ms. Faribah Goudarzi, a MEK member who was imprisoned in Hamadan in 1982 while being nine months pregnant, gave the first devastating testimony.
“In 1983 I was arrested on charges of supporting the Mojahedin Organization, and for nearly six years in the prisons of Hamedan and Nahavand I witnessed the heinous crimes of the criminal Ebrahim Raisi,” Ms. Goudarzi explained.
She spoke about the use of her child as a torture technique on September 24, 1983, as “a painful memory that still lingers before my eyes every moment even after 38 years,” “They entered my cell, picked up my son, who was only a 38-day-old baby — while he was asleep and threw him on the ground in a cruel and ruthless manner. Ignoring his cries, they took off his clothes as they said they were looking for documents and evidence.”
“During the six hours of interrogation, one of them took my son by the hand, and … he slapped him on the back in front of me and the others laughed. Raisi was watching this scene. I expressed this bitter memory to say that we, the survivors of the 1988 massacre, will neither forget nor forgive this crime and the other crimes in the 1980s.” Ms. Goudarzi added.
Another testimony was MEK member Mahmoud Royaie, who largely spoke about Raisi’s part in executing individuals detained and imprisoned in Karaj prior to the 1988 massacre when Raisi was the prosecutor in Karaj.
“Kaveh Nasari was one of the defendants in Karaj who suffered from severe epilepsy, and he was paralyzed under tortures. When he had epileptic seizures, he hit his head and face hard on the ground, so his face was always injured. In August 1988, Kaveh was taken to the death commission. He had shown epilepsy symptoms there, and the criminal cleric Raisi sentenced him to death. On the same day, Kaveh Nasari, who had served his full sentence and who already had lost his memory, was executed,” Mr. Royaie added.
“The expected presidency of a mass murderer like Raisi lays bare the real and evil nature of medieval theocracy ruling Iran,” Ali Safavi, a member of the NCRI’s foreign affairs committee, told Arab News.
“For more than four decades, Western powers cloaked appeasing the Mullahs under the veneer of empowering the illusory moderates, to the detriment of the Iranian people and regional peace and stability. He added.
“This is no longer justifiable. The time has come for the international community to uphold the values they claim to champion, denounce the sham election, and hold the Iranian regime and its criminal leaders, like Raisi, accountable for numerous crimes against humanity.”
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