Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, known for brutal crackdowns against political opposition, dies at 63

 

From NBC News.com (May 20, 2024):

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, known for enforcing brutal crackdowns on political opposition and seen as a potential successor to the supreme leader, has died in a helicopter crash landing in the country’s north, state media reported Monday. He was 63 years old.

Raisi, a conservative hard-line cleric, took office in August 2021 after several popular candidates were disqualified from the election, which had historically low turnout. He wore a black turban, symbolic of those who are descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.

His tenure included a crackdown on mass protests after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed in 2022, the enforcement of a strict women’s dress code, increased enrichment of uranium after the U.S. withdrew from a landmark nuclear deal and increased military tensions with Israel and the West as the regime supported Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Raisi was sometimes notably referred to as the “Butcher of Tehran,” as activists accused him of being one of the four judges who oversaw the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 after the Iran-Iraq war. Iran has never acknowledged what has been described as a massacre of an estimated 2,800 to 5,000 people, according to Human Rights Watch.

“As deputy prosecutor general of Tehran,” the U.S. Treasury Department said in a 2019 sanctions announcement, “Raisi participated in a so-called ‘death commission’ that ordered the extrajudicial executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.”

In 2021, when Raisi was asked about his alleged involvement in the 1988 mass executions during his first news conference as president-elect, he described himself as a “defender of human rights.”

State media reported early Monday that rescuers found "no sign of life" in the wreckage of the helicopter that made a "crash landing" Sunday. Search-and-rescue teams deployed to the scene took hours to reach the crash site, delayed by heavy fog and bad weather.

Raisi was returning with a government delegation that had attended the inauguration of a dam on the border with Azerbaijan.

Two helicopters traveling with Raisi made their destination unharmed.

Though state news aired prayers for Raisi and others following the crash, he is despised by many Iranians in the country and around the world for the government’s brutal crackdown on the country’s 2022 women-led protests and Iran’s dire economic situation.

In 2017, he lost the presidential election to Hassan Rouhani, who was elected to a second term by a wide margin. Rouhani, who had run on a promise to reduce Iran’s diplomatic and economic isolation, was banned this year by Iran for running for the Assembly of Experts, which appoints and can dismiss the supreme leader, Reuters reported.

In 2021, Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard urged an investigation of Raisi for his alleged “crimes against humanity” while he was head of the judiciary.

Under Raisi’s watch, Callamard said, Iranian authorities killed hundreds of people with impunity, “subjecting thousands of protesters to mass arrests and at least hundreds to enforced disappearance, and torture and other ill-treatment during and in the aftermath of the nationwide protests.”

“Ebrahim Raisi’s rise to the presidency follows an electoral process that was conducted in a highly repressive environment and barred women, members of religious minorities and candidates with opposing views from running for office,” Callamard said.

In 2022, the United Nations’ human rights office opened an investigation into the violent suppression of protesters who took to the streets following Amini’s killing. She died after morality police detained her for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly and failing to adhere to the dress code. [read more]

Hell reclaims one of its own. Say hello to Hussein, Stalin, Mao, Hitler and other psychos like you. I'm sure you'll have things in common with them. Definitely no rest in peace for you.

Another article on his death:

Fireworks and dancing as Iranians defiantly celebrate Raisi’s death