Sanctions must remain to end Iran's human rights violations

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Following Iran’s nuclear agreement, the thinking was the country would begin to wind down its human rights violations, especially the use of executions. However, recent reports indicate 33 people were sent to the gallows on Aug. 2.

Congress should dismiss any call for appeasement in relation to Iran, and continue pursuing and holding firm its sanctions against those in leadership who are behind the atrocious human rights violations.

Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi condemned Tehran’s mass execution of Sunni prisoners as “an appalling crime against humanity." 

“The mullahs’ anti-human regime carried out the mass execution of our Sunni brothers on the anniversary of the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in Iran. They are trying in vain to contain the volatile social atmosphere and popular protests by terrorizing the public,” she said.

This is while the Iranian Diaspora communities across the globe are marking the 28th anniversary of the extensive 1988 massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners in Iran in the course of a few months, pledging to have their voices heard and raise awareness on Iran’s horrendous human rights record.

This marks one of Iran’s most atrocious mass executions in recent times. Iranian judiciary officials claim 20 of the victims were Sunni Kurds, executed in Gohardasht (Rajaie Shahr) Prison in Karaj, west of the capital, Tehran.  The victims had denied all charges raised against them, and in video clips and text posted on the Internet revealed they had spent time in “solitary confinement” and placed “under torture.”

Iran is known for its skyrocketing number of executions and obtaining coerced confessions through torture and other banned methods. The mullahs have also proved their “sickening enthusiasm” of sending juveniles to the gallows, all in violation of international laws and respecting no bounds in this regard, according to Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Program Director of Amnesty International. International law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Iran is a state party, absolutely prohibits the use of death penalty for crimes committed when the defendant was below 18 years of age. Yet apparently this is a pretext Iran refuses to respect.

Shahram Ahmadi, amongst those recently executed, had spent 33 months in solitary confinement and sentenced to death after a “five-minute” trial. He never enjoyed access to a lawyer.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein issued a statement condemning this mass execution of Sunni Kurds in Iran as a “grave injustice.” The High Commissioner expressed his doubts over the fact that these individuals ever received a fair trial. Al-Hussein also referred to Ahmadi’s case, adding he was forced under pressure to sign an interrogation paper including false allegations raised against him.

This horrific act of carnage by Iran has sparked a series of global condemnations from a large number of international organizations, accusing the regime in Tehran of launching these executions with sectarian objectives, and demanding a halt to human rights violations. The International Federation of Human Rights Societies and Center of Human Rights Advocate also issued separate statements condemning the execution of Sunni prisoners in Iran.

Iran was one of the world’s top executioners in 2015 after putting 977 people to death, according to Amnesty International. Iran hanged 44 convicted drug traffickers in the span of just two days in 2009. This spelled one of the country's biggest mass executions to that. While international law absolutely limits the application of the death penalty to the “most serious crimes”, which refers to intentional killing, the mullahs’ so-called laws and constitution criminalize various measures and sentence people to death under such terms, not seen anywhere else. Even human rights advocates, including the highly praised Narges Mohammadi, are thrown behind bars for publicly advocating anti-death penalty campaigns. This mother of twins has been deprived by Iranian officials and authorities of seeing her own children, and only permitted one phone call in over a year.

The recent execution of nearly three dozen Sunni Kurds in one day adds to Iran’s already dismal human rights history, especially in the past three years after the “moderate” Hassan Rouhani came to power.

In his statement to the UN Human Rights Council - Session 31- on March 14, 2016, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, said: “At least 966 persons — the highest rate in over two decades — were executed in 2015. At least 73 juvenile offenders were reportedly executed between 2005 and 2015. In the past two years alone, 16 juvenile offenders were executed.”

In their practice of executing juveniles the mullahs have illustrated yet again their callous disregard for human rights. 160 individuals remain in torment on death row in prisons spanning across Iran for crimes allegedly committed during their juvenile years.

The shocking stroke of irony in the recent executions lies in the fact that this incident comes as the European Union is reportedly suggesting to launch human rights negotiations with Iran. Any reasonable party figures Iran would at least consider halting executions prior to such talks. However, this proves once again that Iran takes serious only a brazen and decisive language. This should also serve as a lesson on how Iran disregards and in fact abuses any interceding measures and has refused to budge on any of its old tactics after the much boasted “historic” nuclear agreement.

Kia is a press spokesman for residents of Camp Liberty, Iraq, and members of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran opposition group (PMOI, also known as MEK). He graduated from North Texas University.

WorldViews

An opponent of political violence was once set to lead Iran. One last quarrel changed it all.

A mourner holds a poster of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri at the cleric's funeral in 2009. (Associated Press).

In 1988, nearly a decade after Iran's Islamic revolution, the country's leader-in-waiting faced a decision.

He could stay silent as Iran stepped up a campaign of mass executions, torture and gulag-style imprisonment against perceived internal opponents. Or he could follow his conscience and speak out.

Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri chose to take a stand.

It came at a high cost. Montazeri was dumped as the hand-picked successor to the revolution's leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He would be declared a foe of the state and placed under house arrest for six years.

The executions and purges of the late 1980s in Iran are well known and have been examined in books and reports by rights groups such as Amnesty International. Less clear, however, is what transpired at the highest reaches of power during a pivotal period for Iran and, by extension, for the wider region and Tehran’s relations with the West.

An audio file that surfaced this week — posted on a website maintained by supporters of Montazeri, who died in 2009 — purports to offer a new glimpse into his last, desperate attempt to limit the killings and roundups.

[Opinion: What else is Iran hiding?]

Its importance derives mostly from historical conjecture. Had Montazeri been elevated to power, Iran could have taken a very different course.

Montazeri was an unwavering critic of the ambitious reach of Iran’s theocratic state. In broad terms, he felt the spirit of the revolution was betrayed as Khomeini and other clerics consolidated control after the Western-backed shah was ousted in 1979. The clerics, Montazeri believed, should stay on the sidelines as advisers and guides to the nation, while elected officials and hired-on-merit technocrats took the helm.

The break with Khomeini was sealed by Montazeri’s opposition to secret political trials and summary executions carried out in the name of protecting the revolution.

It came to a head in the final months of the country's 1980-1988 war with Iraq. Worn down by conflict and nearly bankrupt, Iran lashed back hard at those it deemed domestic enemies. They included Western-leaning students, ethnic minorities and opposition factions including the Mujahideen-e Khalq, or MEK, which had launched a failed guerrilla offensive.

A full accounting of what's called the "death commission” created by Khomeini has yet to be carried out. But thousands died — by hanging or firing squad or in places such as Tehran’s Evin prison. According to an Amnesty report in 1990, “Thousands of people were executed between 1987 and 1990 including more than 2,000 political prisoners between July 1988 and January 1989.” The MEK and other groups place the overall death toll much higher.

“In my opinion, the greatest crime committed during the Islamic Republic, for which history will condemn us, has been committed by you,” Montazeri is recorded as saying on the July 1988 tape to a group of senior judicial and intelligence figures, including a domestic spymaster, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who now serves as justice minister in the government of President Hassan Rouhani.

“Beware of 50 years from now, when people will pass judgment on the leader [Khomeini] and will say he was a bloodthirsty, brutal and murderous leader. ... I do not want history to remember him like that,” added Montazeri, who was one of Khomeini’s most trusted allies for decades before they parted ways.

[Iran's parliament moved toward secular politics, but clerics still hold all the power]

A translation of the 40-minute recording was provided by an opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which has offices in Washington and other cities. Similar translations were made by various outlets, including the BBC’s Persian Service.

The authenticity of the recording could not be independently verified. Montazeri’s son, Ahmad, a moderate cleric, said Iranian intelligence officials ordered him Wednesday to remove the audio from the website, news reports said.

Maryam Rajavi, head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran opposition group, urged international prosecutors to use the tape as further evidence that can be used to press charges for the political slayings of the late 1980s. She noted that some of the officials who helped carry out the purges — such as Pourmohammadi and the others who met with Montazeri -- “have, from the beginning of this regime to the present day, held posts at the highest levels of the judicial, political and intelligence apparatuses."

Khomeini died in June 1989, less than a year after the claimed date of the recording, and was succeeded by a lower-ranking cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Some detractors say Khamenei was selected as a low-risk leader who would not challenge the powers of the theocracy or its powerful backers such as the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“Killing is the wrong way to resist against a thought, an idea,” Montazeri said in the 1988 meeting, referring to those opposing the Iranian leadership at the time. “They have one thought, one idea. Responding to a process, a logic — even a faulty logic — with killing will solve nothing. It will make it worse.”

“We will not be in power forever,” he continued. “In the future, history will judge us.”

[The age-old tensions between Iran's clerics and chess]

Montazeri was placed under house arrest from 1997 until early 2003, leaving him effectively silenced during most of the term of reform-minded President Mohammad Khatami. But Montazeri had one more run left.

He lived long enough to witness — and encourage — the Green Movement protests after the disputed reelection to the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009. Later that year, Montazeri issued a public apology for his participation in the 444-day hostage standoff at the U.S. Embassy that ended in 1981.

Montazeri died in December 2009 as Iranian authorities gained the upper hand in the post-election chaos. At his funeral in Qom, the center of Shiite religious study in Iran, tens of thousands of mourners streamed through the streets. Some pumped their fists in defiant chants against Khamenei and his security forces.

Iran’s state-controlled media also got in one last shot. Reports of Montazeri's death ignored his central role in the Islamic revolution, referring to him dismissively as the "rioters' cleric."

Read more:

Iran says it executed a nuclear scientist for spying

British Iranians protest Sunni executions, urge UK government to hold Iran to account

Twenty Iranians are on hunger strike in London in solidarity with those persecuted by the Iranian reg

Twenty Iranians have today entered their third day of a hunger strike in protest against what they say are brutal violations of human rights laws by their country's government.

The protestors, who are camping outside Downing Street in London, have been joined by hundreds of others during the weekend in solidarity with the victims of recent mass executions in Iran.

Last week, up to 20 Sunni Kurds were hanged by the Iranian regime for alleged terrorism offences. Human rights groups have condemned the killings, and claimed that the convictions may have been based on forced confessions.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, branded the executions "a grave injustice" and said there were "serious doubts about the fairness of the trials, respect for due process and other rights of the accused".

Speaking to Christian Today, Hossein Abedini, the UK spokesperson for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) – a coalition of Iranian opposition political organisations functioning as a parliament in exile – also strongly condemned the executions and urged the UK to hold Iran to account.

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Under President Hassan Rouhani, who has presented himself as a 'moderate', human rights violations have rapidly deteriorated, Abedini said. In total, around 120,000 people are believed to have been executed since 1981 for their political or religious beliefs, and the figure has escalated since Rouhani became president. Abedini insisted that the UK's relative silence on Iran's human rights record is "shameful".

"Things have deteriorated and worsened as far as human rights are concerned. There have been 2,500 hangings [since Rouhani came to power in 2013], many juveniles and women have been executed, and religious minorities, especially Christians, are suffering in Iran very badly... There is no freedom for religious minorities; they cannot practice their religion [and they suffer] very brutal and cruel human rights violations," he said.

Iran is ranked ninth on persecution charity Open Door's list of countries where it's most dangerous to be a Christian. Open churches are forbidden, and converting from Islam – the state religion – to Christianity is punishable by death for men, and life imprisonment for women. Last year, more than 100 Christians were arrested or imprisoned, and reports of their torture have emerged.

More widely, Iran has a long history of human rights abuses and violence is rapidly escalating across the country, facilitated by laws which allow the legal persecution of minority communities such as Christians and Baha'i Muslims, who have been condemned by Iranian authorities as an "illegal cult".

"There is no religious freedom in Iran," said Abedini, noting the plight of Saeed Abedini – an Iranian-born US pastor who was released in January after being held in Iran's notorious Evin prison for years – and Maryam Naghash Zargaran, a Christian convert from Islam who remains incarcerated and is said to be in very poor health.

Human rights abuses are not the only concern of campaigners – another is Iran's persistent efforts to acquire nuclear capability – but they are the most prominent.

"The regime itself is the most ungodly regime," Abedini said. Rouhani in 2014 described executions under his rule as the fulfilment of "God's commandments", but Abedini said the majority of Muslims want to distance the brutal punishments from true Islam.

"We believe this is only a fundamentalist regime carrying out [executions] in the name of God and in the name of religion," he said. 'Islam is a religion of compassion and mercy.... [The executions are] absolutely abhorrent, and have got nothing to do with true Islam."

Christian Today: Anglo-Iranians urge UK to hold Iran regime to account

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NCRI - Under the Iranian regime’s President Hassan Rouhani, human rights violations have rapidly deteriorated in Iran, Hossein Abedini of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) told the Christian Today on Monday. The following is the text of a report by the Christian Today about a three-day hunger strike in London to raise attention to the recent mass executions and the 1988 massacre in Iran.

Christian Today

British Iranians protest Sunni executions, urge UK government to hold Iran to account

Carey Lodge

CHRISTIAN TODAY JOURNALIST

08 August 2016

Twenty Iranians have today entered their third day of a hunger strike in protest against what they say are brutal violations of human rights laws by their country's government.

The protestors, who are camping outside Downing Street in London, have been joined by hundreds of others during the weekend in solidarity with the victims of recent mass executions in Iran.

Last week, up to 20 Sunni Kurds were hanged by the Iranian regime for alleged terrorism offences. Human rights groups have condemned the killings, and claimed that the convictions may have been based on forced confessions.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, branded the executions "a grave injustice" and said there were "serious doubts about the fairness of the trials, respect for due process and other rights of the accused".

Speaking to Christian Today, Hossein Abedini, the UK spokesperson for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) – a coalition of Iranian opposition political organisations functioning as a parliament in exile – also strongly condemned the executions and urged the UK to hold Iran to account.

Under President Hassan Rouhani, who has presented himself as a 'moderate', human rights violations have rapidly deteriorated, Abedini said. In total, around 120,000 people are believed to have been executed since 1981 for their political or religious beliefs, and the figure has escalated since Rouhani became president. Abedini insisted that the UK's relative silence on Iran's human rights record is "shameful".

"Things have deteriorated and worsened as far as human rights are concerned. There have been 2,500 hangings [since Rouhani came to power in 2013], many juveniles and women have been executed, and religious minorities, especially Christians, are suffering in Iran very badly... There is no freedom for religious minorities; they cannot practice their religion [and they suffer] very brutal and cruel human rights violations," he said.

Iran is ranked ninth on persecution charity Open Door's list of countries where it's most dangerous to be a Christian. Open churches are forbidden, and converting from Islam – the state religion – to Christianity is punishable by death for men, and life imprisonment for women. Last year, more than 100 Christians were arrested or imprisoned, and reports of their torture have emerged.

More widely, Iran has a long history of human rights abuses and violence is rapidly escalating across the country, facilitated by laws which allow the legal persecution of minority communities such as Christians and Baha'i Muslims, who have been condemned by Iranian authorities as an "illegal cult".

"There is no religious freedom in Iran," said Abedini, noting the plight of Saeed Abedini – an Iranian-born US pastor who was released in January after being held in Iran's notorious Evin prison for years – and Maryam Naghash Zargaran, a Christian convert from Islam who remains incarcerated and is said to be in very poor health.

Human rights abuses are not the only concern of campaigners – another is Iran's persistent efforts to acquire nuclear capability – but they are the most prominent.

"The regime itself is the most ungodly regime," Abedini said. Rouhani in 2014 described executions under his rule as the fulfilment of "God's commandments", but Abedini said the majority of Muslims want to distance the brutal punishments from true Islam.

"We believe this is only a fundamentalist regime carrying out [executions] in the name of God and in the name of religion," he said. 'Islam is a religion of compassion and mercy.... [The executions are] absolutely abhorrent, and have got nothing to do with true Islam."

The protest in London falls on the anniversary of the 1988 executions of political prisoners in Iran, during which Amnesty International has documented the disappearance of more than 4,400 prisoners, though opposition groups say as many as 30,000 were killed. Those striking are calling on the British government not only to hold Iran to account for its wider human rights violations, but also to recognise and condemn this massacre, which the regime denies having taken place.

Omid Ebrahimi, 18, is taking part in the hunger strike along with his father, who was held as a political prisoner in Iran for a decade between 1981 and 1991. Several members of his mother's family were also executed during this time.

"For us, this was one of the darkest days in the history of human beings," Ebrahimi told Christian Today. "And for this, we call upon all western governments, and in particular the British government, to condemn the massacre."

Ebrahimi was insistent that the human rights situation in Iran remains as volatile as it was in the 1980s under then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini. "The regime hasn't changed at all," he said. Religious minorities are under particular threat, he added, and almost anyone is at risk of accusations of being against the regime.

"This can only be solved one way, and that's a regime change," Ebrahimi said.

His fellow protestors have received some parliamentary support already. Conservative MP Matthew Offord sent a message offering his "best wishes" to those on hunger strike, adding that "the mass execution of Sunni political prisoners is deeply disturbing".

Offord joined a number of political and church leaders at the NCRI's annual conference in Paris last month.

In a statement released ahead of the conference, four bishops and others issued a joint statement setting out their "grave concern" at Iran's human rights situation.

They said: "Repression of Christians has not only continued but intensified during the presidency of Hassan Rouhani.

"In such circumstances, we call on all Western countries to consider the deplorable situation of human rights in Iran, particularly the painful situation of Christians and the intensification of their oppression, in navigating their relations with Iran.

"We call upon them to precondition improvement of those relations on the cessation of oppression of Christians and on a halt in executions."

Source:

Protesters mount hunger strike outside Downing Street over Iran regime's executions

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Protest: Demonstrators used hangmans' nooses as props during the three-day hunger strike Mohammad Hanif Jazayer

Hordes of protesters have entered the final day of a hunger strike outside Downing Street in a bid to convince the government to condemn “horrific” executions being carried out in Iran.

The three-day starvation demo began on Saturday to coincide with the anniversary of the 1988 massacre in which 30,000 political prisoners were slaughtered in the country.

Over the weekend groups of Anglo-Iranians and British supporters flocked to Downing Street in anger at the execution of scores of Iranian nationals last week.

The National Council of Resistance in Iran says more than 2,500 people have been hanged during the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, 

Iranians to go on 3-day hunger strike outside Downing Street in call for halt to executions in Iran

NCRI - Members of the Anglo-Iranian community and supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in the United Kingdom plan to stage a sit-in protest on the anniversary of the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in Iran in 1988 and will go on a 3-day hunger strike in London outside Downing Street in solidarity with political prisoners and the victims of torture and execution inside Iran.

In the summer of 1988, some 30,000 political prisoners, the vast majority affiliated to the main opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), were summarily and extra-judicially executed by the mullahs’ regime. The majority of those executed were either serving prison sentences for their political activities or had already finished their sentences but were still kept in prison.

The Iranian authorities have mass executed scores of people in the past few days and over 2500 people have been hanged during the presidency of Hassan Rouhani.

Members of the Anglo-Iranians from different backgrounds will be joining the hunger strike. They will be camped outside Downing Street on:

Saturday and Sunday, 6-7 August, 5pm-8pm
Monday, 8 August, 3pm-7pm

The participants will urge the UK government to categorically condemn the incessant cruel hangings that are taking place unabatedly in Iran and act with its Western allies to press for an immediate halt to the executions and torture in Iran. They will also call on the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Security Council to refer the human rights dossier of the mullahs’ regime to the International Criminal Court for the prosecution of its leaders including the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani.

British human rights personalities are expected to address the rally.

Hunger strike held outside Downing Street to condemn mass execution in Iran

Toby Meyjes for Metro.co.ukSaturday 6 Aug 2016 3:50 pm

Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2016/08/06/hunger-strike-held-outside-downing-street-to-condemn-mass-execution-in-iran-6051844/#ixzz4GiqemY5C

The three-day hunger strike started today (Picture: NCRI)

Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2016/08/06/hunger-strike-held-outside-downing-street-to-condemn-mass-execution-in-iran-6051844/#ixzz4GiqpsgQY