Human rights NGOs and Iranian opponents regret that the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi means that he has never been held accountable for the crimes they say he committed for decades in the country.
After quickly rising through the ranks in the years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Mr. Raïssi was accused by activists of overseeing mass executions of prisoners in 1988 and then of committing numerous human rights violations. as head of the judiciary and, later, as president.
“Ebrahim Raïssi was a symbol of judicial impunity for criminals and the lack of accountability within the system of the Islamic Republic,” Mahmood-Amiry Moghaddam, director of the NGO Iran Human Rights, told AFP. (IHR), based in Norway.
He “should have been prosecuted for crimes against humanity and answered, in a fair trial, for the countless atrocities he committed over these four decades,” Moghaddam added.
Shadi Sadr, co-founder of the NGO Justice for Iran, which campaigns for accountability for violations of Iranians’ rights, criticized some messages of condolence from figures such as European Council President Charles Michel after the death of Mr. Raïssi and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
“Such initiatives are seen as a betrayal by the countless victims of human rights violations, which accentuates the Iranian population’s disappointment with the international community,” she told the AFP.
Crimes against humanity
Other NGOs, including Amnesty International, have long accused Mr. Raïssi of being a member of a “death committee” made up of four people, which approved the execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, most of them suspected members of the Iranian People’s Mojahedin (MEK) opposition movement, banned in Iran.
Mr. Raïssi, considered before his death as a possible successor to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, categorically denied any personal involvement, while welcoming the decision to carry out the executions.
In September 2020, a group of seven UN special rapporteurs wrote to the Iranian government demanding accountability for the executions, stating that “the situation could amount to crimes against humanity.”
Mr. Raïssi was promoted to prosecutor general of Tehran in 1989, then, in 2004, deputy head of the judiciary, a position he held for ten years, encompassing the period of the major protests of 2009.
He became head of the judiciary in 2019 and president in 2021, while in 2022 his government implemented a harsh crackdown on protests led by women, which left hundreds dead, according to NGOs.
In early 2024, an independent United Nations fact-finding mission reported that the Iranian government had committed crimes against humanity due to the “violent repression” of protests and discrimination against women.
Pillar of the system
“Sympathy for him is an insult to his victims and to the Iranian nation, whose only regret is that he did not live long enough to witness the fall of the Islamic Republic and be tried for his crimes,” said Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s deposed shah and a leading opposition figure.
“Mr. Raisi was a pillar of a system that imprisons, tortures and kills people who dare criticize state policies,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Iran-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. At New York.
“His death allowed him to escape accountability for his many crimes and the atrocities committed by the state under his rule,” he added.
This activist warned of the risk of an escalation of repression against Iranian civil society, as Iranian leaders, under the leadership of Mr. Khamenei, seek to maintain control of power after the loss suddenly from Mr. Raïssi.
“What is crucial now is that the international community does not allow the Islamic Republic to exploit this moment to further repress and brutalize the Iranian people,” Ghaemi said.