Human Rights Violations of the Iranian Regime

By Raymond Tanter Monday, 19 August 2019

_ As of September 19, 2017, “Iran remained the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and continued to support attacks against Israel. It maintained its terrorist-related and destabilizing activities through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods (Jerusalem) Force and the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hizballah,” per the State Department.

In the effect, the Iranian regime is one of the world’s leaders in human rights violations.

To see a map of Iran, where plans for its destabilizing actions are hatched, click here.

Looking Back to Look Forward

Consider the following evidence. Ayatollah Montazeri (designated successor as the Supreme Leader of Iran) sent letters to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, referring to “thousands of executions in a few days” in July 1988, per Amnesty International.

In May 1988, Iran executed three prominent political leaders of different political organizations in Evin Prison.

In December 1988, President Khamenei, who later became Supreme Leader, ordered the execution of, “those who have links from inside prison with the hypocrites [PMOI] who mounted an armed attack inside the territory of the Islamic Republic,” per Amnesty International. The majority of people killed belonged to the PMOI, but others still belong to different Iranian party organizations.

“When asked about the 1988 mass executions and the 'slander' directed at the regime for the massacre, Mostafa Pourmohammadi said that the regime was “at war” and no one should expect it to follow “legal procedures and consider citizen’s and human rights” at a time of war.

Earlier, Pourmohammadi had described the “Death Commissions” decisions as “God’s orders,” affirming that he was proud of carrying out the verdict,” per Iran Human Rights Monitor.

These were not the latest of Iran’s human rights violations. Similar to 1988, Iran continues to wreak havoc in the Strait of Hormuz, as it has seized several oil tankers in the region. Capturing sailors from tankers is a violation of their human rights. Click here to watch a video of an Iranian seizure of a British tanker and human rights violations of the British sailors.

Beginning in July 2019, Iran commandeered British vessels and has destabilized the Gulf Region. “The display of force by the Revolutionary Guards was publicly welcomed by hard-line Iranian officials. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose hostility toward Britain and the United States is well known, appeared to revel in the achievement of capturing the British vessel,” per The New York Times.

For more evidence, click here to review additional Iranian tanker seizures in the Strait of Hormuz.

Stephen Hadley, former national security advisor to President George W. Bush and current Chair of the Board of Directors of the United States Institute of Peace spoke on the Public Broadcasting Service. Hadley discussed Iran, with implications for human rights violations, on June 20, 2019, and said,

"The things that Iran has done up to this point, threatening our troops and civilians in Iraq, these attacks on oil tankers, attacks on some facilities in Saudi Arabia, these were sort of the typical pattern, in that they were — everybody knew the Iranians did them, but they were done in a way that was deniable."

So-called “deniable” evidence adorns Iran as the leading state-sponsor of terrorism. The IRGC is linked to the Houthi rebels in Yemen, which is notorious for laying landmines killing civilians and blocking aid. Now consider the way forward.

Looking Forward

The Supreme Leader, Iran Central Bank leader, and Foreign Minister were designated as terrorists; President Trump: “Build an Iranian Sanctions Wall,” per Mark Dubowitz in The Wall Street Journal, on April 2, 2019. Then future presidents could not easily remove sanctions on the Bank.

Congress had imposed the sanctions in 2011, by an overwhelming vote.

But President Obama removed these sanctions when he joined other states in the Iran deal of July 2015. President Trump re-imposed sanctions on the Bank when he withdrew from it on May 8, 2018.

Because The Central Bank of Iran is responsible for bankrolling terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Shiite militias in Iraq, it needs to have the Dubowitz “Wall,” built around it.

In July of 2019 alone, there were 39 executions, including four women and two children. In fact, in the past six years under the so-called “moderate,” President Rouhani’s rule, 3,700 people were executed.

These shocking statistics crown Iran, on a per capita basis, the highest-ranking the nation of executions. Also during July, there were at least 20 flogging sentences, while reports of flogging and beating prisoners continue at high rates, per Iran Human Rights Monitor.

Finally, where is the evidence of Iranian human rights violations slowing down? There is none!

Prof. Raymond Tanter (@AmericanCHR) served as a senior member on the Middle East Desk of the National Security Council staff in the Reagan-Bush administration, Personal Representative of the Secretary of Defense to international security and arms control talks in Europe, and is now Professor Emeritus at The University of Michigan. Tanter is on the comprehensive list of conservative writers and columnists who appear in The Wall Street Journal, Townhall.com, National Review, The Weekly Standard, Human Events, The American Spectator, and now in Newsmax.

Share: