Iranian dissidents on Saturday slammed what they described as a “sham” election, after the election of a notorious hardliner who was tied to mass executions was elected president of the theocratic regime. Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s judiciary chief, won the country’s presidential election in a landslide — but it was a vote characterized by an extremely low turnout after calls for a boycott over what critics described as a rigged election to push Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s protégé into power.
Iran’s opposition group abroad said Ebrahim Raisi’s election as president should be a turning point for how foreign governments, mainly the US and Europe, deal with the Iranian regime. Raisi, the hardline head of the country’s justice department, won Iran’s election on Saturday. Iran said 28.9 million of the country’s 59 million eligible voters cast a ballot, with Raisi winning 17.9 million votes overall, the Associated Press reported. There were about 3.7 million “white” ballots, or ballots cast without any candidate’s name written in.
Iranian hackers used the reputation of one of the regime’s most high-profile critics to dupe dissidents into an online surveillance programme that ran for at least six years without discovery, researchers have found. The cyber-espionage operation run by the group known as Ferocious Kitten was designed to steal data from the user’s computer and allow them to hijack any Telegram app, which is commonly used by the opposition to avoid regime scrutiny. “The content of the decoy documents suggests the attackers are specifically going after supporters of protest movements within the country,” said cyber security experts Kaspersky, which first learnt of the malware in March.
A State Department spokesperson expressed disgust this week with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s refusal to release the imprisoned California resident Jamshid Sharmahd, who is being held in Iran as his health condition worsens and without legal counsel. “We will work with our allies, many of which have citizens currently detained by Iran, to seek their citizens’ release and stand up to the disgraceful practice of using unjust detentions of foreign citizens as a political tool,” a State Department spokesperson told Fox News on Tuesday.
When the Iranian regime holds its presidential election this Friday, it is likely to experience the lowest level of voter turnout in its 42-year history. This has been acknowledged by certain Iranian officials and state media outlets. There are a number of reasons for this, which include the lingering effects of three anti-regime uprisings, public resentment over authorities’ crackdowns on those uprisings, a lack of serious competition among the candidates, and the brutal legacy of the clear frontrunner. All but the last of these factors were already apparent in February of last year, when Iranian regime held elections for various governors and members of parliament.
Ebrahim Raisi, the favorite in Iran’s presidential election, has used his position at the heart of the judiciary for grave rights violations, including mass executions of political prisoners, activists say. They say Raisi — who now has victory in his sights on Friday after even conservative rivals were disqualified in vetting — should face international justice rather than lead his country. “Raisi’s only place is in the dock, not the presidency,” said Justice for Iran Executive Director Shadi Sadr.
Iranian authorities should stop physically assaulting, harassing and threatening peaceful activists in Iran, including the prominent rights defender Narges Mohammadi, who told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) that she fears for her life after being twice violently confronted by unidentified state security agents in less than a week. “I am extremely worried for my life,” Mohammadi told CHRI on June 17, 2021. “In a matter of a few days, unknown assailants who do not identify themselves have attacked and threatened me.”
The brother of executed wrestling champion Navid Afkari said his sister’s phone was confiscated by intelligence agents. Just hours later all of Elham Afkari’s Instagram posts were removed and videos of Navid’s forced confessions were posted. According to the Afkari family, following her arrest outside Shiraz Central Prison where her brothers Habib and Vahid have been held in solitary confinement since September 5, 2020, Elham Afkari’s phone was seized by regime officials and they have shared Navid Afkari’s forced confessions on her Instagram account.
With the clerical regime paving the way for Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi, the preferred candidate of supreme leader Ali Khamenei, he runs virtually uncontested for president. Ali Khamenei appointed Ebrahim Raisi to head the Iranian regime’s judiciary on February 26, 2019. Raisi’s first two years as judiciary chief (2019-2021) have been marked by intensified repression and rights violations. Particularly women were subjected to harsher repression. Iranian women experienced violations of fundamental rights; lack of free social activity; and torture, arrest, and imprisonment during his tenure.
A critically ill political prisoner in Adelabad prison, Shiraz, is being denied medical access despite suffering from a range of serious medical issues including a spinal cord disorder, which causes coordination loss, numbness, swallowing difficulties, impaired movement, and severe pain, as well as bladder and bowel control issues. Hossein Sepanta, who was sentenced to 13.5 years in prison in 2013, requires specialised medical care every day for the rest of his life and that’s not available in prison. Due to being denied the proper medical treatment, he regularly wakes up in the night screaming in pain.
A Kurdish civil rights activist was arrested at his home in Mariwan, Kurdistan province on Thursday morning and transferred to an unknown location, his family told a human rights watchdog. Security forces entered Aram Fathi’s house and “resorted to violence” when his mother protested, a relative of Fathi told Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), an NGO that monitors human rights violations in Iran. The security forces “claimed they had a court order,” the relative said. The security forces also seized Fathi’s personal belongings, including his cell phone, laptop and books.
Iran goes to the polls on June 18 to elect its new president. The election has been described as fraudulent and rigged and is likely to be spurned in record numbers by Iranian voters, who consider the outcome a fait accompli. Most of the candidates are hard-liners, which UK charity Release International warns will increase pressure on the persecuted Church, writes Andrew Boyd. There is little doubt as to the outcome of this weekend’s presidential election in Iran. A hard-liner, almost certainly Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi, will win.
A pair of lawmakers has formed a working group in Congress to bolster U.S. government efforts to aid Americans held hostage or unlawfully detained abroad. Set to launch Thursday, the Congressional Task Force on American Hostages and Americans Wrongfully Detained Abroad aims to assist the families of Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained, to provide resources for fellow lawmakers, and to communicate with the administration on the issue. It is led by Reps. French Hill (R., Ark.) and Ted Deutch (D., Fla.). The task force’s formation “gives us hope that our government and our Congress are doing all they can to bring our loved one and all Americans held abroad home,” said Samar Hamwi and Mouna Kamalmaz, the sister and mother, respectively, of Majd Kamalmaz, a Virginia therapist who has been missing since being stopped at a Syrian checkpoint in 2017.
The majority of voters in Iran shunned presidential elections won by hardline judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi, exiled opposition groups said on Saturday, hailing the “boycott” as a blow to the country’s theocratic system. Raisi won 62 per cent of the vote with about 90 per cent of ballots counted from Friday’s election, Iranian authorities said. Turnout figures have yet to be released. Iranian opposition groups based abroad had urged a boycott of the poll, which was held after the most prominent rivals to Raisi were either disqualified in pre-election vetting or withdrew.
The head of Lebanon’s powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah on Sunday congratulated ultraconservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi on winning Iran’s presidential election, describing him as a “shield” against Israel and other “aggressors.” Raisi, a former judiciary chief, won nearly 62 percent of the vote in Friday’s election on turnout of 48.8 percent, after his most prominent rivals were either disqualified or pulled out of the race. “Your victory has renewed the hopes of the Iranian people and the people of the region who see you as a shield and a strong supporter… for the resistance against aggressors,” Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said in a statement.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Ebrahim Raisi’s election as Iran’s new president was a blow for human rights and called for him to be investigated over his role in what Washington and rights groups have called the extrajudicial executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988. Iran has never acknowledged the mass executions and Raisi has never publicly addressed allegations about his role. Some clerics have said the trials were fair, praising the “eliminating” of armed opposition in the early years of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Fa’ezeh Hashemi, a well-known Iranian political activist, said that the country’s presidential election on Friday was tantamount to a referendum since more than half of the eligible voters refused to go to the ballots. She advised the Islamic Republic officials to take heed of the people’s grievances and demands that were expressed in a “civic fashion.” In an Instagram interview with Camelia Entekhabifard, the Independent’s Persian editor-in chief, a few hours after the exit polls were announced, Hashemi called the campaign to boycott the elections by groups of Iranians inside and outside the country “successful.”
Responding to today’s announcement declaring Ebrahim Raisi as Iran’s next president, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard said: “That Ebrahim Raisi has risen to the presidency instead of being investigated for the crimes against humanity of murder, enforced disappearance and torture, is a grim reminder that impunity reigns supreme in Iran. In 2018, our organization documented how Ebrahim Raisi had been a member of the ‘death commission’ which forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed in secret thousands of political dissidents in Evin and Gohardasht prisons near Tehran in 1988.
On Tehran’s southeastern edge is a plot of land called Khavaran. The spot used to be outside of the city, but urban sprawl is inching closer every year. It looks like a vacant lot, but dark secrets lie just below the surface. Iranian authorities call it la’nat abad – damned land. Here, some of the Islamic Republic’s skeletons are buried. In 1988, as the Ayatollahs were contemplating accepting a UN-sponsored resolution to end the eight-year war with Iraq, their agents hurriedly buried in Khavaran hundreds or perhaps thousands of bodies of political dissidents from all walks of life.
Saeed Masouri, the longest held political prisoner in Iran, sent an open letter from Raja’i Shahr Prison, reacting to the upcoming developments, including the clerical regime’s sham presidential election. Noting the increasing infighting within the regime, in part of the letter, Saeed Masouri wrote: “For years, this game spilt the blood of thousands of young Iranians in the streets, and mutilated them in prisons and safe houses. In the streets, they splashed acid on the face of women.
Americans have heard a lot about Iran lately. The news coverage is partly related to the Biden administration’s negotiations with the Iranian regime over a mutual return to the Obama-era nuclear deal, which President Trump wisely exited. The reporting is also tied to Iran’s support of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Palestinian terrorist groups that attacked our ally Israel. Then again, perhaps you’ve heard about the Islamic Republic of Iran because of its pathological hostage taking, which has continued unabated since the 1979 hostage crisis. Or, its chants of “Death to America!” Or, its genocidal anti-Semitism.
اگنس کالامار، دبیر کل سازمان عفو بینالملل خواستار آن شده است که ابراهیم رئیسی رئیس جمهور منتخب ایران بابت اقداماتش که وی آن را “جنایات علیه بشریت” خوانده تحت تحقیقات کیفری قرار گیرد. خانم کالامار گفته است “این که ابراهیم رئیسی به مقام ریاست جمهوری دست پیدا کرده است به جای آن که به دلیل ارتکاب جنایات علیه بشریت، از جمله قتل، ناپدیدسازی قهری و شکنجه تحت تحقیقات کیفری قرار بگیرد، نمودی فجیع از سلطه مطلق مصونیت در ایران است. درخواست تعقیب کیفری آقای رئیسی ساعاتی پس از مطرح شد که وزارت کشور ایران وی را پیروز سیزدهمین دوره انتخابات ریاست جمهوری اعلام کرد.
برای اولین بار در عمر ۴۳ ساله جمهوری اسلامی، توافقی نانوشته بین مخالفان داخل و خارج از ایران را شاهدیم و آن تحریم رای دادن بهعنوان یک کنش اعتراضی است. بخش عمدهای از اپوزیسیونی که در دهه ۶۰ شمسی با سرکوب عریان حکومت به خارج رانده شدند، در انتخابات هیچیک این سالها شرکت نکردند. این در حالی است امید اصلاحطلبان، نیروهای مذهبی و بخش بزرگی ازشهروندان گامبهگام از میان رفت. با سرکوب حرکتهای گوناکون، ریزشهای جمهوری اسلامی هر ساله انباشتهتر شد. پس از سرکوب جنبش دانشجویی ۱۸ تیر، ضربه بعدی را خود حکومت به مشروعیتش وارد آورد: با دستگیری، تجاوز و ضربوشتم کسانی که با شعار «رای من کو؟» به انتخابات مهندسیشده اعتراض کردند..