US should back Iranian people
Even though headlines around the world have zeroed in on Iranian Presidentelect Ebrahim Raisi’s past crimes against humanity following his election victory last month, there has been less analysis about the meaning of his ascent when it comes to human rights, the rule of law, freedom and justice.
Leading human rights organization Amnesty International has documented Raisi’s role in the 1988 massacre of at least 30,000 political prisoners. Acclaimed human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has called the massacre the “worst crime against humanity since the concentration camps of the Second World War.” So why are US authorities silent about this egregious human rights violation?
Without doubt, Raisi is the personification of a callous dictatorship that spares no effort to eradicate opposition. He has been summoned to be president to escalate the brutal suppression that began in earnest in the 1980s, soon after the regime usurped power. But the tides of popular opposition have hardly subsided since then. In fact, resentment toward the regime is today at an all-time high, while the regime’s power and legitimacy is at an all-time low. A case in point was the abysmally low turnout during the June 18 presidential election, which was widely boycotted by the people.
An unrelenting surge in economic and social grievances is morphing into political demands that are rapidly coalescing around a core appeal: Regime change. Faced with this crisis, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has run out of options. He can neither meet the people’s demands nor moderate his regime’s behavior. To stay in power, he simply has to resort to violence and murder.
The battle lines are being drawn. Two opposing camps are facing off against one another. On one side, the Iranian people are uniting against the entire regime and around a common cause, namely a democratic republic that would be accountable to them, not an unelected mullah. On the other side, the Iranian regime is bracing for an all-out war against its own people and the international community.
Raisi is already sanctioned by the US, so the Biden administration has a chance to prove it is serious about its declared human rights agenda. Washington should loudly declare its support for the Iranian people as they struggle to overthrow the regime and establish a secular, free and non-nuclear republic.
While the international community failed to prevent the 1988 massacre, it now has a choice. It can either appease the regime of murderers and remain passive as the mullahs gear up to kill more innocent protesters, or it can take the moral high ground by launching an international investigation into the 1988 killings, calling for Raisi’s prosecution at an international tribunal and warning the regime that any future atrocities will have consequences.
Tehran’s impunity must end; otherwise the regime will go on to commit more crimes against humanity and massacres that could have been prevented.