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HomeIran News NowIran: Human Rights Record Of Ebrahim Raisi, Eyewitness Accounts, Massoud Abouie-Rad

Iran: Human Rights Record Of Ebrahim Raisi, Eyewitness Accounts, Massoud Abouie-Rad

Human Rights record of Ebrahim Raisi, Eyewitness Accounts, Massoud Abouie-Rad

My name is Massoud Abouie-Rad. I am a former political prisoner who spent eight years in Evin, Gohardasht, Ghezelhesar, Babol, Sari, and the joint committee prisons. My older brother, Mehdi, a political prisoner under Shah’s regime, was executed on August 9, 1981, by the criminal clerical regime. The clerical regime has also executed two of my sisters.

Concerning the 1988 massacre, we were transferred to solitary confinement on July 19, 1988, and it was clear that something is coming up. I was with Reza Shemirani and Amir Abdollahi in a cell. On July 28, 1988, Amir was summoned. When he returned at 11 PM, he told us that they took us to court, we were 78 people, and they sentenced all of us to execution. They want to execute all.

He whispered these words to my ear when they allowed him to come back to the cell and collect his belongings. Based on this information and other indications, we felt that we are faced with a committee called the “death commission,” which is more like a kangaroo trial, and the regime calls it the “amnesty commission,” and it is tasked to seal the fate of all prisoners.

Meaning that at the end of their failed process of breaking political prisoners to repent, they decided to massacre the political prisoners and commit genocide. I was summoned to the death commission in late July 1988. Until then, I was not aware of the composition of the commission. When I entered, I saw Mojataba Halvaie, who was a torturer, the warden Seyed Majid who was also involved in torture and later became the Ministry of Intelligence representative in Evin prison, and mullah Ebrahim Raisi.

Raisi had rapidly risen to higher ranks by proving his loyalty to the regime, so he became the main member of the death commission. Raisi was not wearing clerical cloth; he was then deputy prosecutor. On his right side sat the regime’s prosecutor Eshraqi and in front of Raisi sat Nayeri, the Sharia judge, and Pourmohammadi.

Nayeri referred to my mustache and said, you are a hypocrite, which meant I am a MEK. He wanted to prove in this way I was still holding my beliefs because based on Khomeini’s fatwa, this four-membered commission was tasked with identifying the resolute prisoners to execute them.

Raisi entered the discussion and, by reading my file out loud, told Nayerri that “his family is affiliated with the MEK. His father is a banished cleric and is now imprisoned. His mother, sisters, and brothers are all in prison.”

So, he was fortifying my death sentence. I saw my cellmate face this death commission one by one, and all were executed later.
These criminals should all be put on trial for committing genocide, not to occupy the position of president.