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Showing posts with the label #justice4IranMassacre

When the Supreme Leader Speaks, Who Still Listens?

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  By: Struan Stevenson Mojtaba Khamenei inherited the most powerful office in the Islamic Republic. Yet six months into his tenure, a question once considered unthinkable is surfacing in Tehran. When the Supreme Leader speaks, who still listens? For almost five decades, the answer was obvious. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini created a system in which factional warfare could rage beneath the surface, provided everyone ultimately bowed to the Supreme Leader. Ali Khamenei preserved that arrangement for more than three decades. Presidents came and went. Clerics competed. The Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) accumulated power. Yet one principle remained sacrosanct. The Supreme Leader had the final word. Today that principle is under strain. On August 28, Mojtaba Khamenei warned officials against creating false choices between war and negotiation, compromise and confrontation. He urged them to avoid publicizing weaknesses and declared that anything damaging social cohesion was forbidden. The mess...
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Iran: Whether International or Unilateral, Ebrahim Raisi Must Face Prosecution for Genocide

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 Written by Mahmoud Hakamia When Ebrahim Raisi was  inaugurated  as the next president on August 5, it was the culmination of more than 30 years of impunity for both him and the regime as a whole. In 1988, while serving as Tehran’s deputy prosecutor, Raisi became one of four figures in charge of a massacre of political prisoners that went on for three months and claimed at least 30,000 lives. Various legal scholars have called this massacre one of the late 20th century’s worst crimes against humanity, with many say that it fits the criteria to be prosecuted as an instance of genocide. Yet no one has ever faced accountability for the killings, and this has emboldened the regime to reward the perpetrators with ever more powerful and influential positions. With Raisi’s appointment to the presidency, that process has very nearly reached its apex. His June 18 “election” was orchestrated by the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who tasked the Guardian Council to exercise it...
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