According to the analyses of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI / MEK Iran), Iran is facing a human rights catastrophe that requires international attention.
Ebrahim Raisi, a mass executioner
Ebrahim Raisi, a mass executioner, was appointed as the regime’s new president this year. In the summer of 1988, he was a prominent member of the “death commission,” a group of regime officials who sentenced over 30,000 political prisoners to death. The majority of those executed were members and supporters of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI / MEK Iran), and they were executed for challenging the regime’s fundamentalist and oppressive rule.
Raisi’s role in sending dissidents to the gallows has been described in horrific detail by prisoners who have survived or escaped Iran’s jails. Raisi justified his activities in executing political prisoners in his inaugural press conference as the regime’s president, describing himself as a human rights supporter.
Crime against humanity and genocide
Many jurists and legal experts have described the 1988 massacre of Iranian political prisoners as a crime against humanity and genocide. They have demanded the establishment of an international committee to investigate and prosecute those responsible, including Raisi and the regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Raisi was the chief of the judiciary branch before becoming president, and during his tenure, the number of executions in Iran increased dramatically. Thousands of imprisoned demonstrators were tortured in Iran’s jails after the November 2019 nationwide uprisings, and many were killed.
When Raisi was appointed as the president, the Secretary-General of Amnesty International said that “Ebrahim Raisi has risen to the presidency instead of being investigated for the crimes against humanity of murder, enforced disappearance, and torture is a grim reminder that impunity reigns supreme in Iran.”
The new head of the judiciary
Raisi, however, is not the only current senior Iranian official whose hands are tainted with the blood of innocent people. Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, the new head of the judiciary, has a long history of human rights violations. During the 2009 nationwide uprisings, he was involved in the arbitrary arrest, torture, and killing of protesters. He was the intelligence minister at the time.
The new chairman of the Majlis (parliament), Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is a veteran of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), who has been involved in the persecution of dissidents and protestors. Ghalibaf has openly boasted about his role in repressing demonstrators in the streets.
The international community’s passivity
For decades, the regime has enjoyed impunity for mass executions and crimes against humanity. The international community’s passivity has given the regime a free pass to carry out murders and human rights violations without fear of international reprisal. Executions are one of the regime’s most important tools for governance and survival, manifested in the bloody careers of the three heads of the branches of power in Iran.
In a message on the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said:
“Khamenei seeks to intensify suppression, torture, and execution of all prisoners in an attempt to save the regime from being overthrown, similar to the 1988 massacre. For this purpose, the regime has imposed inhumane pressures not only on political prisoners but all prisoners. The regime tortures prisoners to the brink of death and effortlessly sends them to the gallows in a bid to intimidate the society and, in its view, to block the path of uprisings.”
It is now more crucial than ever for the international community to hold the Iranian regime accountable for its human rights violations.
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