{"id":246823,"date":"2021-09-13T05:11:40","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T10:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=246823"},"modified":"2023-02-01T04:16:45","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T03:16:45","slug":"iran-whether-international-or-unilateral-ebrahim-raisi-must-face-prosecution-for-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-whether-international-or-unilateral-ebrahim-raisi-must-face-prosecution-for-genocide\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran: Whether International or Unilateral, Ebrahim Raisi Must Face Prosecution for Genocide"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"iran-ebrahim-raisi-1988-massacre-min\"<\/p>\n

When Ebrahim Raisi was inaugurated<\/a> as the next president on August 5, it was the culmination of more than 30 years of impunity for both him and the regime as a whole. In 1988, while serving as Tehran\u2019s deputy prosecutor, Raisi became one of four figures in charge of a massacre of political prisoners that went on for three months and claimed at least 30,000 lives. Various legal scholars have called this massacre one of the late 20th century\u2019s worst crimes against humanity, with many say that it fits the criteria to be prosecuted as an instance of genocide. Yet no one has ever faced accountability for the killings, and this has emboldened the regime to reward the perpetrators with ever more powerful and influential positions.<\/p>\n

With Raisi\u2019s appointment to the presidency, that process has very nearly reached its apex. His June 18 \u201celection\u201d was orchestrated by the regime\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who tasked the Guardian Council to exercise its vetting authority by eliminating all other candidates from the race. This was a part of a larger process of power consolidation by Khamenei, which also entailed the elimination of rival faction\u2019s candidates during the previous year\u2019s parliamentary ballots.<\/p>\n

Khamenei was the regime\u2019s president at the time of the 1988 massacre<\/a> and was therefore intimately involved in carrying it out and covering it up. Now Raisi\u2019s presidency would still signal another evolution in the regime\u2019s expressions of impunity.\u00a0For this reason, above all others, it is vital for the international community to deny Raisi legitimacy on the world stage by refusing his participation in the United Nations General Assembly and denying him access to countries where he aspires to conduct state visits.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, any nation with a serious commitment to human issues could grant Raisi access, then initiate an arrest warrant for his acts of mass murder and genocide. This was the recommendation offered by legal scholars last month when they participated in a virtual conference on the 1988 massacre organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran.<\/p>\n

Geoffrey Robertson<\/a>, a human rights barrister from the United Kingdom, noted in his remarks at that conference that \u201cthere is an international convention which binds the countries of the world\u2026 to take action\u201d over crimes that amount to genocide. He then went on to say that this action may take place at the International Criminal Court following a resolution by the United Nations Security Council, but that such a resolution may face a veto by Russia or China. For this reason, Robertson suggested, the severity of the crime should be established beyond all doubt through a formal international investigation, either to overcome political resistance to a resolution or to set the stage for Western powers to pursue accountability by more unilateral means.<\/p>\n

Eric David<\/a>, a professor of international law at the University of Brussels, emphasized the legal framework for such unilateral action in his own remarks at the NCRI\u2019s conference. \u201cIf a current Iranian regime official finds himself in any state on the planet\u2026 the prosecutor of this state, can [lawfully] indict this person for the crimes committed in 1988,\u201d he explained after referencing the established principle of \u201cuniversal jurisdiction\u201d in cases involving the most serious international crimes. Any crime against humanity might justify the implementation of that principle, but none more so than genocide. Thus, no single individual is a more suitable subject to that principle than Ebrahim Raisi.<\/p>\n

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