The helicopter carrying Ebrahim Raisi, the President of the Iranian regime, infamously known as the “Butcher of 1988” due to his involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in the summer of 1988, crashed yesterday in northeastern Iran.
In the crash of the helicopter carrying Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the governor of East Azerbaijan Province, and the Friday prayer leader of Tabriz were also killed.
Families of the victims of the Iranian regime described Ebrahim Raisi in their messages as “one of the most significant human rights violators” in the country and emphasized that with his death, Raisi escaped trial.
However, social media users inside and outside Iran have posted numerous videos of dancing, celebration, and distribution of sweets, showing the hatred of the Iranian people for the “Butcher of ’88.”
تو این چندسال مادرمو اینقدر خوشحال ندیده بودم.
— سعید افکاری (@afkari_saeed) May 20, 2024
For instance, Saeed Afkari, the brother of Navid, a young athlete executed by the Iranian regime in September 2020, wrote on the social media platform X: “I haven’t seen my mother this happy in years.”
Navid Afkari was executed when Ebrahim Raisi was the head of the judiciary of the Iranian regime.
Foreign Policy wrote: “Raisi’s death puts a coda on a short but transformative era in Iranian politics that saw the country lurch in a hard-line direction and threatened to bring the Middle East to the brink of regional war. In nearly three years in power, Raisi moved Iran’s domestic politics and social policy in a more conservative direction and pushed the country further into the role of clear U.S. antagonist in the region after his predecessor, Hassan Rouhani—who defeated him in the 2017 presidential election—first sought a detente with the West over Iran’s nuclear program before stepping up proxy attacks.”
The American online newspaper Politico wrote in the introduction of Ebrahim Raisi: “Raisi, 63, was a conservative cleric and former judiciary chief who was responsible for decades of vicious crackdowns against his own people’s aspirations for greater personal freedoms and democracy, arresting, torturing and executing tens of thousands of the Islamist regime’s opponents.”
The New York Post, one of the oldest newspapers in the United States, also wrote: “Iran’s hardline President Ebrahim Raisi was killed when a helicopter carrying the reviled leader known as the “Butcher of Tehran” crashed in a remote region of the country Sunday, officials and state media said.”
The analytical news website The Conversation wrote: “Domestic turmoil under Raisi’s presidency was accompanied by shifts in Iran’s regional and international role.
“As supreme leader, Khamenei has the final say on foreign policy. But Raisi presided over a state that continued down the path of confrontation toward its adversaries, notably the U.S. and Israel.”
