Europe faces a new moral challenge of either standing by its human rights principles or forgoing them for economic interests after Ebrahim Raisi, a mass murderer by all accounts, was declared the next President of Iran.
Raisi, the ultra-hardline current Judiciary Chief of Iran, is most notorious for playing a central role in the extra-judicial execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.
Aged just 28, Raisi was Tehran’s Deputy Prosecutor in the summer of 1988 when Ayatollah Khomeini appointed him to the Death Commissions whose task was to identify political prisoners who refused to renounce their beliefs and send them to the gallows. Khomeini’s decree targeted in particular members of the main opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), though members of other groups were also brought before the commissions in a second wave. Hearings lasted as little as two minutes, according to survivors. Victims were asked to identify their party affiliation. Anyone who uttered the word ‘Mojahed’ was immediately instructed out the room and down the corridor, from where they were taken to be hanged from cranes, usually six at a time. Victims’ bodies were then doused with disinfectants, and they were secretly transported to mass graves at night.
In all, upwards of 30,000 political prisoners – men, women, and children – are believed to have been executed during the 1988 massacre. That figure is even greater than the 8,000 Muslim men and boys killed during the infamous Srebrenica massacre of 1995 for which a United Nations war crimes tribunal earlier this month upheld a genocide conviction and life sentence against former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic.
Michelle Bachelet, the UN’s human rights chief, praised the tribunal’s decision saying it “highlights the determination of the international justice system to ensure accountability no matter how long it may take – in Mladic’s case, nearly three decades after he committed his appalling crimes.”
Surely, even the most imaginative minds could not fathom the possibility of Mladic today holding the post of Bosnia’s chief justice or President. So how can EU leaders possibly accept a mass murderer like Raisi as the President of Iran? How can they possibly shake hands with a man who according to his former victims personally handed down sentences of stoning to death, amputation of limbs, and throwing prisoners off a cliff, in addition to ordering the mass murder of thousands of defenseless political prisoners?
The failure of the international community to take any action against Raisi and other perpetrators of the 1988 massacre has only fueled a culture of impunity in Iran. Lest we forget that when nationwide protests erupted against the theocratic regime in November 2019, the authorities immediately cut off the internet and shot and killed some 1,500 unarmed protesters on the streets. Last summer, Raisi’s Judiciary even executed Iran’s national wrestling champion Navid Afkari for taking part in peaceful protests.
In his 41 years of service to the Islamic Republic, Ebrahim Raisi has done nothing other than hand down death sentences. Raisi’s ruthlessness in suppressing dissent and his full support for the Revolutionary Guards’ terrorist activities abroad have convinced the Supreme Leader that he is the right man to be leading the crackdown on the next uprising that is bound to occur against the theocracy. That’s why the Guardian Council disqualified all of Raisi’s serious challengers, guaranteeing his victory in the poll. Once mass murderer Raisi takes over, thousands of political prisoners, including those who have taken part in peaceful protests, will be at serious risk of a new brutal killing spree.
Last September, seven UN independent human rights experts criticized the international community for its failure to take action over the 1988 massacre, warning this inaction had “emboldened” the authorities in Iran to “conceal the fate of the victims and to maintain a strategy of deflection and denial.”
Europe’s leaders are particularly to blame for letting Iranian authorities get away with impunity. Not only has their silence over Iran’s brutal crackdowns been deafening, but their policy of appeasement and economic deals with the regime have also lined the pockets of the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards as they continue their reign of terror against the Iranian nation.
It’s time for the EU to stop its shameful assistance to the murderous mullahs. Instead of recognizing the result of the regime’s unfair and illegitimate poll, EU leaders should support the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry into the 1988 massacre and publicly warn Iranian leaders that any crackdown on likely future protests will be immediately met with hard-hitting blanket sanctions against the regime.
History has not forgiven the UN’s Dutch “peacekeepers” that allowed Mladic to massacre the people of Bosnia; nor will it forgive Europe’s current leaders if they fail to stand firm against mass murderer Raisi in carrying out crimes against humanity against the people of Iran.