More Iranian Officials Call for Gross Human Rights Violation, as EU Continues Inaction
Written by
Shahriar Kia
Along with increasing the number of executions, officials of Iran’s clerical regime explicitly call for more oppressive measures and defend the regime’s medieval methods.
Their remarks confirm the regime’s disregard for global humanitarian standards and require a firm action by the international community.
“The Global Arrogance [international community] monitors Iran [regime] regarding [hand amputation] and questions the implementation of Islamic codes, and has tightened the hands of judges. But the sentence of amputation must be carried out for the thieves so that these criminals will stop their evil deeds,” Entekhab daily wrote on Tuesday, quoting Mousavi Largani, Member of the Presidium of the regime’s Majlis [parliament].
While the regime’s officials, particularly the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, plunder people’s wealth, the regime brutally amputates the hands or fingers of so-called “thieves.” By implementing this medieval verdict, the real thieves ruling Iran try to cover up the fact that their systematic plunder of the country’s resources forces poor people to commit theft.
Similarly, on Thursday, Brigadier General Qassem Rezaei, the State Security Force (SSF) deputy commander, told his agents on TV to “break the arms” of defiant youth who the criminal regime calls “thugs.” Rezaei said: “If you catch them on the scene and I see that he is standing unharmed, you should answer why he is still unharmed.”
In other words, the regime describes poor people as “criminals” and defiant youth as “thugs” to justify its inhumane actions. The regime’s economic mismanagement and institutionalized corruption have devastated the Iranian people’s lives.
The rising inflation rate and poverty, coupled with the coronavirus outbreak and now the air pollution- which are direct results of the regime’s inaction and mismanagement have turned the Iranian society into a “volcano” which could erupt at any time.
“One should fear the time that no one will be able to put the brake on the volcano of the starving people,” wrote the state-run Arman-e Melli on November 29, 2020.
Recent executions in Iran, particularly the execution of a juvenile offender, Mohammad Hassan Rezai, and a European resident, Ruhollah Zam, despite international outcry, showed the regime has no respect for international human rights standards and disregards global “condemnations.”
These “condemnations,” mostly by the European Union Member States, who praise themselves as “human rights defenders” and according to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell have human rights “in their DNA,” have no effect on the regime in Tehran.
Because words do not prevent the regime from committing human rights violations. In fact, the international community’s inaction in the face of the regime’s major crimes, such as the 1988 massacre of political prisoners and mass murder of 1500 protesters during the November 2019 uprising, has provided the regime with a sense of impunity to continue its crimes and reward the perpetrators.
The regime’s current Judiciary Chief, Ebrahim Raisi, “hanging judge,” is one of the main perpetrators of the 1988 massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners. The regime’s current and former Justice Minister, Alireza Avaii and Mostafa Pourmohammadi, respectively, were also involved in this massacre.
In a letter sent to Iran’s authorities in September and published in December, seven United Nations experts, underlined the 1988 massacre “may amount to crime against humanity.”
They especially underlined the international community’s failure “to act” in face of the 1988 massacre “had a devastating impact on the survivors and families as well as on the general situation of human rights in Iran and emboldened Iran to continue to conceal the fate of the victims and to maintain a strategy of deflection and denial that continue to date.”
When Mr. Borrell negotiates with Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who praises the medieval regime as the Middle East’s “greatest democracy,” this only encourages the regime to disregard the EU’s “concerns” and “condemnations.”
As Mr. Borrell acknowledged on December 10, when it comes to human rights violations, the EU “should go beyond” letters, sanctions, and condemnations. The EU should immediately sanction, Raisi, Zarif, and all other officials of the regime involved in human rights violations. The EU leaders should make any relations with the regime contingent on a complete halt to human rights violations by Iran’s ruling
More Iranian Officials Call for Gross Human Rights Violation, as EU Continues Inaction