Following the dying of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in East Azerbaijan province, Amnesty International stated at this time that his dying should not deprive the Iranian individuals of their proper to justice, reality and reparation for the quite a few violations of worldwide regulation and human rights abuses dedicated throughout his time in energy for the reason that Nineteen Eighties.
Appointed prosecutor basic of Karaj, Alborz province in 1980 on the age of 20, Ebrahim Raisi quickly rose by means of the ranks and held quite a lot of senior judicial and administrative positions earlier than turning into president in 2021. Over the previous 44 years, he has been straight concerned in or overseen severe human rights violations, together with the enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions of hundreds of political dissidents within the Nineteen Eighties, the illegal killings of hundreds of protesters, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, and the violent persecution of girls and women who didn’t adjust to necessary veiling.
“Ebrahim Raisi ought to have confronted a legal investigation throughout his lifetime for crimes towards humanity, together with homicide, enforced disappearance and torture. His dying should not deprive the victims and their households of their proper to know the reality and to have all others complicit in his crimes held to account,” stated Diana El Tahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa area.
“For a long time, perpetrators who ought to be held criminally accountable have loved systematic impunity in Iran. The worldwide neighborhood should act now to ascertain a path to accountability for victims of crimes dedicated in violation of worldwide regulation and different severe human rights abuses by Ebrahim Raisi and different Iranian officers.”
The worldwide neighborhood should act now to ascertain a path to accountability for victims of crimes dedicated underneath worldwide regulation and different severe human rights abuses by Ebrahim Raisi and different Iranian officers.
Diana Eltahawy, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa Region
Involvement within the 1988 prisoner bloodbath
In 1988, Ebrahim Raisi was a part of the “Death Committees” that carried out a sequence of compelled disappearances and extrajudicial executions of hundreds of dissidents in Evin Prison in Tehran and Gohardasht Prison in Alborz Province between late July and early September 1988. Since then, survivors and households of the victims have been brutally denied reality, justice and reparations for many years, and have confronted persecution for calling for accountability.
In May 2018, Ebrahim Raisi publicly defended the bloodbath, describing it as “one of many Islamic State’s proudest achievements.” [Islamic Republic] system”.
In a November 2018 report, Amnesty International known as for a legal investigation into Ebrahim Raisi for persevering with crimes towards humanity together with enforced disappearances, persecution, torture and different inhumane acts, together with the systematic concealment of the destiny of victims and the placement of their our bodies.
© Megdad Madadi ATPImages/Getty Images
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi provides speech
Involvement in quelling lethal protests
Over the a long time since Ebrahim Raisi served as Attorney General from 2019 to 2021, the Iranian judiciary has been a serious driver of human rights violations and crimes underneath worldwide regulation, subjecting tens of hundreds of individuals to arbitrary arrest and detention, enforced disappearances, torture and different ill-treatment, grossly unfair trials, and punishments that violate the prohibition towards torture and different ill-treatment, together with flogging, amputation, and stoning.
Under Ebrahim Raisi’s watch, the judiciary has granted blanket immunity to authorities officers and safety forces who face legal prices for the illegal killings of a whole lot of males, girls, and kids, arbitrary mass arrests of hundreds of protesters, enforced disappearances of at the very least a whole lot of individuals, and torture and different ill-treatment throughout and after the November 2019 nationwide protests.
During the September-December 2022 “Freedom of Women’s Lives” rebellion, Ibrahim Raisi, who served as Iran’s president and chairman of the Supreme Council for National Security, praised and oversaw the violent crackdown by safety forces on protests throughout the nation, which resulted within the illegal killings of a whole lot of protesters and bystanders and the accidents of hundreds, in addition to abuses towards arrested protesters, together with torture, rape and different sexual violence.
Contributing to the horrific enhance in executions
In December 2022, the federal government, appearing on the directives of Ebrahim Raisi, offered a invoice to parliament that, if handed, would increase the scope of the dying penalty for drug-related crimes. On January 8, 2024, the parliament’s Legal and Justice Committee accepted the overall rules of the invoice.
Involvement in violent assaults on girls’s rights
In 2022, Ebraim Raisi oversaw the strict enforcement of the obligatory veil regulation, culminating within the dying in custody of Martha/Zina Amini in September. She was violently arrested by Iran’s “morality” police amid credible experiences of torture and different ill-treatment, resulting in a “freedom of girls’s lives” rebellion and the lethal crackdown that adopted.
Shocking movies have emerged on social media displaying safety forces bodily assaulting girls and women in public locations, arresting and detaining them in violent methods, together with dragging them screaming into police automobiles.
“Ebrahim Raisi’s achievement is a stark reminder of the disaster of impunity in Iran. Those suspected of crimes underneath worldwide regulation not solely escape accountability, however are rewarded with reward and senior positions inside the Islamic Republic’s repressive equipment. Without basic constitutional, legislative and government reforms, this case will possible proceed,” stated Diana Eltahawy.
“States ought to, based mostly on the precept of common jurisdiction, open legal investigations towards Iranian officers who’re moderately suspected of committing crimes underneath worldwide regulation, in order that survivors and victims’ households can see perpetrators delivered to justice and held accountable for his or her crimes.”
background
According to Iranian state media and officers, Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash within the Varzegan area of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province on May 19, 2024. All aboard the aircraft have been killed, together with Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdullahian, the helicopter pilot, and the flight attendant.