{"id":262589,"date":"2022-08-23T11:07:15","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T09:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=262589"},"modified":"2023-02-01T12:51:10","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T11:51:10","slug":"irans-butcher-president-lacks-legitimacy-to-speak-at-un-general-assembly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/irans-butcher-president-lacks-legitimacy-to-speak-at-un-general-assembly\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s \u201cButcher\u201d President Lacks Legitimacy To Speak at UN General Assembly"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ebrahim-Raisi\"<\/p>\n

Iranian regime\u2019s President Ebrahim Raisi<\/a> is currently expected to speak before the United Nations General Assembly sometime after the opening of its 77th<\/sup> session on September 13. Of course, this would require that the United States first grant him a visa to visit New York \u2013 something that would, in turn, afford him an undue claim to legitimacy while signaling disregard for his long history of violating human rights while promoting terrorism and extremism throughout the world.<\/p>\n

Raisi was installed via a sham election<\/a> process in June 2021 after being endorsed by the regime\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei<\/a>. No other prominent political figures were permitted to appear on the ballot, and two minor candidates dropped out of the race at the last moment to throw their weight behind the supreme leader\u2019s pick. Meanwhile, the leading pro-democracy opposition, the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI\/MEK<\/a>), urged the public to boycott the polls as a means to \u201cvote for regime change.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vast majority of the Iranian people embraced that appeal. Even the regime\u2019s own account of his election agrees that voter turnout was the lowest in the regime’s history. The MEK<\/a>, meanwhile, assessed that less than ten percent of eligible voters took part in the process, with most staying home while others deliberately submitted invalid ballots to protest Raisi\u2019s candidacy in particular, as well as the broader parody of democracy.<\/p>\n

These protests were an outgrowth not only of the MEK\u2019s electoral boycott campaign but also of the underlying activism which highlighted Raisi\u2019s background and labeled him the \u201cbutcher of Tehran.\u201d In 1988, he was one of four officials to serve on the \u201cdeath commission<\/a>\u201d in the nation\u2019s capital, which oversaw the interrogation and summary execution of political detainees at Evin and Gohardasht Prisons. Those killings were the central component of a nationwide massacre that claimed upwards of 30,000 victims, most of them members of the MEK.<\/p>\n

Raisi\u2019s role in the attempted annihilation of that movement was undoubtedly the main reason why Khamenei appointed him to serve as head of Iran\u2019s judiciary in the wake of a nationwide uprising at the beginning of 2018. Featuring slogans such as \u201cdeath to the dictator\u201d as part of protests that encompassed well over 100 cities and towns, that uprising went a long way toward revealing the opposition\u2019s organizational strength and the extent of its popular support. Indeed, even the supreme leader was compelled to acknowledge in a speech that the MEK had \u201cplanned for months\u201d to facilitate such widespread unrest, and this, in turn, prompted the regime to ramp up its efforts to suppress dissent and discourage affiliation with the Resistance movement.<\/p>\n

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Documentary: 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in Iran and the role of Ebrahim Raisi<\/div><\/div>
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