Iran: The biggest criminals of history

By Pejman Amiri - Young Iranian female writer Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was recently sentenced to six years' imprisonment in Iran for penning an unpublished story about “stoning,” the brutal capital punishment introduced by the ruling mullahs which involves throwing rocks at convicts until they die. Iraee was found guilty of "insulting Islamic sanctities" and "spreading propaganda against the system.” She says she was interrogated for hours while blindfolded and facing a wall, and repeatedly told that she could face execution for "insulting Islam.”

She says she could clearly hear the interrogators threatening and verbally abusing her husband, Arash Sadeghi, in the next cell. Mr. Sadeghi’s mother suffered a heart attack at the time of his arrest on September 6, 2014 and died a few days later. Arash Sadeghi, a student in Allameh University, and human rights activist has already spent seven months in solitary confinement. The Amnesty International reported that she is being punished for using her imagination.

Iran is a country in which using imagination is punished with six years of imprisonment, life of human beings are worthless, and the mullahs are killing and torturing people every day to continue their reign.

Among all the despotic countries in the world, Iran has the biggest number of executions after China, but it ranks number one per capita.

Based on a U.N. statement, Iran had the world’s highest execution rate per capita last year. The statement says that in 2015 alone, at least 966 people were reportedly executed. Executions are carried out following trials that fall short of international standards for fair trials. The statement also noted that execution of women, foreign nationals, and minors had continued across 2015. Public hangings, flagellation, and mutilation are also still common.

Since its foundation in 1979, the theocratic regime in Iran has adopted the policy of suppression and execution as its main domestic policy. In the 80s, thousands of educated youth of Iran who were sympathetic to the opposition groups were executed by the Mullahs. In summer of 1988 alone, based on the decree of Khomeini, 30,000 political prisoners were executed, most of whom were members or supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MeK), the main opposition group to the Iranian regime. The recent revelation of an audio tape and unpublished letters from the late Ayatollah Montazeri, the former successor to Khomeini, has shed light on new dimensions of this great crime. These documents clearly show that in 1988 a genocide took place in Iran, and unfortunately the world did not react to this massacre seriously.

In his letter, Mr. Montazeri wrote that pregnant women and girls as young as 14 and 15 years old were among the executed victims. He told the perpetrators of the massacre that due to these executions you will be remembered as “The biggest criminals in history.”

Thus far, not only “The biggest criminals in history” have not been held accountable for their crimes, but they are in key positions in Iran, and the executions continue every day. 

Due to lack of international accountability to bring these criminals to justice, the carnage has continued and these criminals have turned the slaughter of human beings into a tool to maintain their hold on power. To cover up their crimes in Iran and escape accountability, they have resorted to international terrorism and meddling in other countries’ affairs to divert the attention.

Inaction of the West in face of daily crimes of the mullahs in Iran has helped “The biggest criminals in history” to continue their disgraceful rule. Now is the time for the world, and especially the West, to stop dealing with “The biggest criminals in history” and put sanctions on them for violation of the most basic Human Rights. Any relation with Iran must be conditioned to the halt of execution and torture in the country.