A look at Ebrahim Raisi’s performance shows that from the time the current Iranian regime came to power until his death in the northwestern heights of Iran, he violated people’s rights in various ways and is recognized as one of the most significant violators of human rights in Iran.
“Execution Ayatollah,” “Massacre Ayatollah,” “Butcher of Tehran,” “1988 Executioner,” “Death Judge,” and “Member of the Death Committee” are some of the titles given to Ebrahim Raisi because of his actions.
After the 1979 revolution and following protests by opposition groups, Hadi Marvi, a representative of Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Iranian regime, took the 18-year-old Ebrahim Raisi to Masjed Soleyman to take his first steps in violating people’s rights.
After returning from Masjed Soleyman, Raisi was sent to Shahrud and established and managed the ideological-political complex of the Shahroud Training Garrison Zero-Two for a period.
Entering the Judiciary
In 1980, at the age of 20, Raisi began his career in the judiciary of the Iranian regime as a deputy prosecutor in Karaj. A few months later, he was appointed as the prosecutor of Karaj by the order of the Chief Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Court.
During this time, as a deputy prosecutor and prosecutor of Karaj, he played a fundamental role in suppressing leftist groups and the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). Political prisoners in Karaj knew him as an interrogator and torturer in their cases until 1982.
In 1982, while serving as the prosecutor of Karaj, Raisi also took on the responsibility of being the prosecutor of Hamedan and for four months simultaneously suppressed opponents in both cities.
A while later, he was introduced as the prosecutor of Hamedan Province and remained in this position until 1984.
In 1985, Raisi took on his first judicial management role in the capital, and in the first step, he was appointed as the deputy and successor to the Revolutionary Prosecutor of Tehran.
Three years later, due to his extensive role in suppressing political activists, he caught the attention of Khomeini and was sent on special missions to the provinces of Lorestan, Kermanshah, and Semnan.
Execution of Political Prisoners in the Summer of 1988
The execution of political prisoners in the 1980s is one of the darkest parts of Raisi’s record.
As the Deputy Prosecutor General of Tehran, Raisi was present in the Death Committee and sent several thousand people to their deaths between August and September 1988.
The exact number of victims of these executions is unknown, but according to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, over 30,000 people were executed during this period.
Political prisoners were executed for collaborating with organizations opposing the Iranian regime, particularly the PMOI and other opposition groups.
Amnesty International, on May 22, in a statement, highlighted Raisi’s direct role in forced disappearances and extrajudicial executions of thousands of political opponents in the 1980s, including 1988.
Iran: Blood-soaked secrets: Why Iran’s 1988 prison massacres are ongoing crimes against humanity
In its statement, Amnesty International noted that in May 2018, Ebrahim Raisi publicly defended the mass killings and described them as one of the proud achievements of the regime. It said that for decades, survivors and families of the victims have been cruelly deprived of truth, justice, and reparations and have been prosecuted for demanding accountability from the officials.
Iran: Presidency of Ebrahim Raisi a grim reminder of the crisis of impunity
After the death of Ruhollah Khomeini and the beginning of Ali Khamenei’s era as the leader of the Iranian regime, Raisi was appointed as the prosecutor of Tehran and held this responsibility for five years from 1989 to 1994.
The General Inspection Organization and Deputy Judiciary
After that, in 1994, Raisi was appointed as the head of the General Inspection Organization and remained in this position until 2004.
During this period, Raisi filed numerous cases against journalists and recorded other instances of human rights violations in his track record.
From 2004 to 2014, he served as the First Deputy of the Judiciary. From 2014 to 2016, he was the Prosecutor General of the regime, and in 2012, by Khamenei’s order, he was also appointed as the Special Clergy Prosecutor and fabricated cases for many opposing clerics.
Presidency of the Judiciary
Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, appointed Ebrahim Raisi as the head of the Judiciary on March 7, 2019.
During his tenure as the head of the Judiciary, Raisi continued his previous practices of imprisonment, torture, execution, and various violations of the rights of the Iranian people.
In the first six months after Raisi assumed the presidency of the Judiciary, the issuance of sentences increased by 119% compared to the same period during Larijani’s presidency.
According to statistics provided by human rights organizations, Raisi was responsible for the execution of more than 400 people during his two-year tenure as head of the Judiciary.
Among the executed were political opponents and protesters such as Navid Afkari, Mostafa Salehi, Rouhollah Zam, and Heydar Abdollahpour, the execution of at least seven juvenile offenders, 25 women, and the execution of a man on charges of drinking alcohol.
In those two years, in addition to executions, Raisi issued prison sentences, flogging, and fines for hundreds of political, civil, and labor activists and supporters of various critics and opposition groups.
Presidency
Raisi became the president of the regime on June 18, 2021, and until his death in a helicopter crash on May 19, 2024, he continued to violate the rights of the Iranian people in various ways.
A year after Raisi took office, nationwide protests in Iran began following the death of Zhina Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, in September 2022 after being arrested by the morality police.
These protests quickly turned into a nationwide uprising in Iran, and according to statistics from human rights organizations, the Iranian government killed over 750 protesters during the crackdown on these protests and executed at least nine more protesters.
As the president and head of the Supreme National Security Council, Raisi had a direct role in the killing, execution, and suppression of citizens during these protests.
Violations of women’s rights, religious minority rights, workers’ rights, nurses’ rights, and teachers’ rights are other instances recorded in Raisi’s human rights violation record.
He was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in November 2019, and in 2011 his name was included alongside 80 Iranian regime officials in a proposed sanctions list by the European Union.
Now, many of the families seeking justice for victims of the Iranian regime, upon hearing the news of Ebrahim Raisi’s death, still demand his trial and state that his death does not mean the closure of his criminal cases.
