{"id":238870,"date":"2021-04-30T08:59:37","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T13:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=238870"},"modified":"2023-02-01T04:57:17","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T03:57:17","slug":"iran-regimes-terror-threats-are-fueled-by-impunity-over-human-rights-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/human-rights\/iran-regimes-terror-threats-are-fueled-by-impunity-over-human-rights-violations\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Regime\u2019s Terror Threats Are Fueled by Impunity Over Human Rights Violations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rep.<\/a><\/p>\n

A resolution was recently introduced to the US House of Representatives which expresses \u201csupport for the Iranian people\u2019s desire for a democratic, secular, and nonnuclear Republic of Iran\u201d and condemns \u201cviolations of human rights and state-sponsored terrorism by the Iranian Government.\u201d The majority of the document is devoted to cataloging some of the regime\u2019s most recent and most severe malign activities, and it concludes with the recommendation of a multilateral Western policy that holds the regime accountable for \u201cbreaching diplomatic privileges\u201d and safeguards the Iranian people\u2019s rights to move for a change of regime in their homeland.<\/p>\n

H. Res. 118<\/a> makes it clear that the challenges to those rights are severe, permanent, and by no means limited to Iran\u2019s territorial borders. The resolution emphasizes, for instance, that four Iranian operatives including a high-ranking diplomat were convicted by a Belgian court in February for plotting to set off explosives near Paris, at the annual gathering of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The 2018 plot was evidently motivated in part by an uprising that took place in Iran at the beginning of that year, which was largely attributed to the NCRI\u2019s main constituent group, the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran<\/a> (PMOI\/MEK).<\/p>\n

Given that there were dozens of high-profile American and European dignitaries at the 2018 Free Iran rally, the terror plot was a prime example of how Western interests and personnel are threatened by the regime\u2019s unbridled terrorism. The regime\u2019s use of terrorism against its dissident dates back to the earliest days of the mullahs\u2019 regime and it has weathered the most dramatic, authoritarian efforts to stamp out the MEK. It has also persisted in spite of an unfortunate international tendency toward silence in the face of accounts of those crimes.<\/p>\n

This silence goes a long way toward explaining the sense of impunity underlying the Paris terror plot \u2013 one of several of the regime\u2019s terror and assassination plots to be uncovered just since the beginning of 2018. The Belgian court that prosecuted that case also made it clear that the four operatives were acting upon instructions from high within the Iranian regime. While their conviction and sentencing were a step up from Western reactions to various earlier terrorist incidents, but the lack of any other serious action confirms the regime\u2019s assumption that it can attempt such crimes and face little to no consequence.<\/p>\n

This assumption has clear parentage and has unfortunately been reinforced many times over the years. The Belgian court case is a notable challenge to it, and there have been others besides. But until those challenges begin to seriously outweigh the evidence of Western appeasement policy, the lives of Iranian dissidents will remain in constant peril both inside Iran and throughout the world.<\/p>\n

The severity of that threat was made clear in November 2019<\/a> when residents of nearly 200 Iranian cities and towns took part in an anti-regime uprising with the MEK at its forefront. Having already faced a similar, if slightly smaller uprising in January 2018, regime authorities responded by opening fire on crowds, killing over 1,500 people and arresting 12,000 others. This death toll amounts to one of Iran\u2019s worst single incidents of repression, but still pales in comparison to what has been called the \u201cworst crime\u201d of the regime and one of the worst crimes against humanity to take place anywhere in the world during the latter half of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

In the summer of 1988, prisons all across Iran convened panels of judges, prosecutors, and intelligence operatives which came to be known as \u201cdeath commissions.\u201d Spurred on by a fatwa from the regime\u2019s founder, Ruhollah Khomeini that described the theocratic system\u2019s opponents as enemies of God, the tribunals began interrogating political prisoners over their affiliations and political attitudes, then promptly implemented death sentences for those who refused to demonstrate submission to the clerical regime and its fundamentalist ideology.<\/p>\n

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VIDEO: The untold story of the 1988 Massacre in Iran<\/div><\/div>
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