RUTHFULLY YOURS

• Many people boycotted the elections and protesters called on US President Joe Biden to stop trying to return to the nuclear deal.
• “The government is telling people to vote… We are not going to vote in order to show the world that we Iranians are frustrated with this clerical establishment. We do not support a government that shoots down a passenger plane… that lies repeatedly, and that kills and tortures its own citizens.” — Soraya, a student at Tehran University, to Gatestone Institute, three days before the election.
• At the age of 24, Raisi was appointed as deputy of the Revolutionary Court Prosecutor’s Office. There, as a member of the “Death Commission”, he would be known for, and implicated in, one of the world’s largest mass executions, in which more than 30,000 people were executed, including children….
• The Biden administration — instead of enriching and empowering these tyrants — need to stand with the Iranian people, who for decades have been suffering under Iran’s brutal and predatory regime.

The Iranian regime ran a sham election to make its favorite mullah candidate, Ebrahim Raisi, linked with mass executions, become the next President of the Islamic Republic. Will the European Union and the Biden administration at least condemn the Iranian regime and stop the West’s appeasement policies with the ruling mullahs?

In Iran, the regime urged people to vote, most likely to show that it enjoys legitimacy; however, what it faced was widespread voter apathy and a record low voter turnout. Many people boycotted the elections and protesters called on US President Joe Biden to stop trying to return to the nuclear deal. Anahita, an Iranian teacher from Tehran, told Gatestone, “I did not go to vote. Like many people, I did not have a candidate. So, why should I vote? The mullahs had a candidate: Raisi”.

Three days before the election, Soraya, a student at Tehran University, also told Gatestone:

“The government is telling people to vote. But I see voting as an insult. We are not going to vote in order to show the world that we Iranians are frustrated with this clerical establishment. We do not support a government that shoots down a passenger plane [Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, downed by the IRGC in January 2020], that lies repeatedly, and that kills and tortures its own citizens. We do not support a government that steals the nation’s resources and spends it on its militias. The old game of moderate or hard-liner is over. They are all the same.”

It is important for the world to know exactly who is this new President of Iran.

After the Islamic revolution of Iran in 1979, Raisi was appointed as a judge at the age of 19 in the Karaj Prosecutor’s Office, even though he had no formal university education. A year later, he was appointed to be the prosecutor for Karaj city, the fourth-largest in Iran. During the first few years after the revolution, Raisi proved his loyalty to the Islamic Republic by silencing many dissidents and opposition groups.

At the age of 24, Raisi was appointed as deputy prosecutor of the Revolutionary Court. There, as a member of the “Death Commission”, he would be known for, and implicated in, one of the world’s largest mass executions, in which more than 30,000 people were executed, including children and pregnant women. A US House of Representatives resolution detailed:

“… over a 4-month period in 1988, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran carried out the barbaric mass executions of thousands of political prisoners and many unrelated political groups… according to a report by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, the massacre was carried out pursuant to a fatwa, or religious decree, issued by then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini…”

The late Hussein-Ali Montazeri — one of the founding fathers of the Islamic Republic, as well as a human rights activist, an Islamic theologian and the designated successor to the Islamic revolution’s Supreme Leader Khomeini until the very last moments of Khomeini’s life — said regarding the massacre:

“I believe this is the greatest crime committed in the Islamic Republic since the [1979] revolution and history will condemn us for it…. History will write you down as criminals.”

Montazeri pleaded with Raisi and his colleagues to stop the executions:

“It was first of [the Islamic holy month of] Muharram; I asked Mr. Nayyeri, Mr. Eshraqi, Mr. Raisi and Mr. Pourmohammadi, Now is Muharram; at least stop the executions during Muharram. Mr. Nayyeri said: We have so far executed 750 in Tehran and separated 200 as those persevering on their position. Let us finish them and then whatever you say, we shall do it.”

After overseeing the mass executions and brutally cracking down on opposition and dissidents, Raisi was promoted by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and later appointed to more high positions. These included the Prosecutor of Tehran, Chairman of the National Television Supervisory Council, head of the General Inspection Office, and as the Attorney General of the Islamic Republic.

Finally, Khamenei appointed Raisi as the head of the regime’s notorious judicial system. After his appointment, Raisi pointed out in a speech at the 23rd National Assembly of Revolutionary Guards Commanders and Officials in 2019: “We will not cut the fingers of those who are corrupt; we will cut off their entire hand.”

The U.S. Department of Treasury, on November 5, 2019, placed Raisi on its sanctions list.

The Biden administration — instead of enriching and empowering these tyrants — needs to stand with the Iranian people, who for decades have been suffering under Iran’s brutal and predatory regime.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu