New US Sanctions, Iran and Massacre of 30,000 Political Prisoners

Adoption of a bill by both chambers of the US Congress, imposing new sanctions on Iran, has terrified the Iranian regime. The sanctions includes Iran’s ballistic missile program, terrorism, and violation of Human Rights.

Lights of Liberty on the 30th Anniversary of 1988 Massacre

Rabat – In the summer of 1988, 30,000 Iranian political prisoners, supporters of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, were massacred. As the 30th-anniversary approaches, the families of the victims and the citizens of Iran still await justice and an international tribune.                 

Thousands of Iranian political prisoners were systematically executed during a state-sponsored, five month-long killing spree in 1988. The prisoners, some as young as 14 years old, were killed in groups—loaded onto trucks and hanged from cranes. Over the past three decades, the regime has blocked all attempts at investigating the extent of the massacre.  They have gone to great lengths to conceal the truth about the murders, including damaging cemeteries with bulldozers and toppling the headstones that mark the martyrs’ graves

There is neither a single government institution nor criminal justice system to deter crime and enforce a penal code in Iran. The Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, controls everything.  He sets the tone and direction of Iran’s domestic and foreign policies and has allowed many former members of the “Death Commission” to remain in power. Figures like Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi and cleric Ebrahim Raisi are heavily involved in contemporary Iranian politics. The former is presently the minister of justice under President Hassan Rouhani’s Administration and the latter was the Supreme Leader’s in the 2017 presidential election—both have defended the government’s actions starting on July 19, 1988.

“[A] dictatorship that appoints as its justice minister someone who killed 30,000 people is telling you everything you need to know about the core nature of the dictatorship,” said Newt Gingrich, 50th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, at the Free Iran Rally in Paris on July 1, 2017.  “[D]ictatorships like the one in Iran threaten freedom anywhere,” according to Gingrich, who called Iran the largest supporter of state terrorism in the world.

The massacre was ordered by a Khomeini decree, called a fatwa, that reads: “[P]olitical prisoners throughout the country who remain steadfast in their backing for the Mojahedin (MEK) are condemned to execution.”

Despite the preservation of policies that rely on crackdowns, tortures, and executions over the past three decades, , the regime has failed. “You will someday be proud to say you were a part of what freed Iran,” Gingrich said.

“I want to salute you today for your courage and for your perseverance of the MEK and the NCRI,” Said Linda Chavez, Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity and former director of the Office of Public Liaison, at the Paris gathering.  “You are the ones who remain committed to freedom and to democracy for Iran and to eradicate the suppression, the terrorism, and the regime’s demonizing campaign that has been directed at you.  Your perseverance gives us hope that we shall, in the end, defeat the phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism, whose heart beats in the clerical regime in Iran.  I wish you a good meeting, and I wish that your message will be carried throughout the world.”

“They have on their hands the blood of so many of your people,” said former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, “but they have on their hands the blood of my people, too, who they helped to kill in Iraq and who they’ve helped to kill for years and who they’ve held hostage.” Giuliani is an advocate for classifying the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization. He continues: “If they’re not a terrorist organization, there is no such thing as a terrorist organization.  And we should declare them a terrorist organization so we can cut them off of support around the world.”

Despite the dark legacy of Iran’s dictatorships, the “light of liberty can overcome and replace the darkness of the tyrannical Iranian regime,” remarked Tom Ridge, the former United States Secretary of Homeland Security, at the rally. “The light of freedom is kept going by all those who have lost their lives for the cause.”

Greek philosopher Xenophon wrote: “The true test of a leader is whether its followers will adhere to his cause from their own volition, enduring the most arduous hardships without being forced to do so, and remaining steadfast in the moments of greatest peril.”

Iran Acknowledges Massacre of Political Prisoners

Iran Acknowledges Massacre of Political Prisoners

“It is not easy to keep silent when the silence is a lie.”
Victor Hugo - Les Miserables

U.S. Should Turn Up The Heat On Iran

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the support of "elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of" power. He made the comments in a hearing on State Department budget for next year before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Secretary Tillerson’s testimony on Iran, coupled with that of near unanimous Senate vote on “Countering Iran's Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017” bill condemning mullahs’ missile proliferation program, human rights record and destabilizing role in the Middle East, was received in Tehran as a recipe for disaster.

It is for the first time in nearly four decades of mullahs’ rule that a U.S. Secretary of State clearly calls for regime change. It might be a coincidence that at the same time the strongest Senate vote to date against Iran’s religious dictatorship is passed with 98 votes out of 100.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson holds a press conference on Iran in the Treaty Room of the State Department in Washington, DC on April 19, 2017. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

The bill is also unique because while it targets the most important issues involving the Iranian regime’s provocative actions, it has not violated the nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA) struck by the Obama administration. It is an important reminder since the deal is often used as an excuse to give the regime in Tehran a free pass.

Iran regime change is in the making

 Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stressed in a recent congressional hearing that the U.S. should "work towards support of those elements inside Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government," signaling the overhaul needed in Washington's Iran policy.

From Tehran's point of view, this was a completely unpleasant surprise, as the Trump administration unexpectedly placed its weight behind those seeking true and democratic change.

Considering escalating public dissent and growing rifts in Iran's senior hierarchy, the international community should brace for a major impact in developments centered on Iran.

Before and after the May 19 presidential "election," Iran's powder-keg society witnessed a major outbreak of protests, especially by investors placing their savings in institutions linked to the state and/or the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

The vast network associated with the Iranian opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) has for a year now focused its widespread effort inside the country on raising awareness, especially among the younger generation, about the true nature of this regime's 38-year report card.

One troubling dossier was the summer 1988 massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners in dozens of prisons throughout Iran.  Perpetrators of that horrendous purging enjoy high rank in today's regime.  Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi is ironically the minister of justice in President Hassan Rouhani's cabinet.

Conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi, known to be the favored candidate of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the May race, is being groomed to succeed the ill Khamenei in the regime's ultimate leadership post.  Both Pour-Mohammadi and Raisi were leading members of the four-man "Death Commission" presiding over the mass executions.

Activities and revelations made by the PMOI/MEK network inside Iran exposed those involved in the 1988 massacre.  This turn of events placed Khamenei before a major decision of enforcing his candidate as president and risking a major uprising even more powerful than that of 2009 – that, or succumb to another term of Rouhani as his regime's president.

Rest assured that despite promising to realize freedoms, Rouhani in his second term bears neither the intention nor the will to realize anything even remotely similar to reforms.

Parallel to these developments are unprecedented divides among senior officials in Tehran.  On a number of occasions, Khamenei and his faction have indirectly issued threats against Rouhani, even comparing his fate to that of the Iranian regime's first president back in the 1980s, who was impeached.

When IRGC Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani lashed out at those targeting the Guards, his outburst was considered by many to be aimed at Rouhani.

"In the Islamic Republic, we're all responsible towards martyrs, society, religion and our country. The biggest betrayal is to cast doubt toward the foundations of this system[.] ... [N]one today must weaken the corps," he said recently.

This is most probably a reference to Rouhani's recent remarks against the IRGC through the elections process and after presidential campaign.

This dangerous dispute will also leave Khamenei incapable of grooming any successor to his throne or managing a smooth transitional process, set to become deadly for the mullahs' already unclear future.

Couple all these dilemmas on Khamenei's table with the growing turmoil in the Middle East as ISIS's days are numbered.  Attention among the international community is focusing on post-ISIS circumstances, and the Trump administration is receiving further calls to weigh blacklisting the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, as well as ultimately seeking regime change through supporting the Iranian opposition.

"Iran must be free, said Newt Gingrich," former speaker of the House of Representatives, at a recent Iranian opposition rally near Paris.  "The dictatorship must be destroyed. Containment is appeasement, and appeasement is surrender. The only practical goal is to support a movement to free Iran. Any other goal will leave a dictatorship finding ways to get around any agreement and to lie about everything."  Gingrich is known for his very close relations with President Trump.

Such an initiative also enjoys vast regional support, voiced also recently by a prominent Saudi figure.

"The Iranian people are the first victims of [the mullahs'] dictatorship," said former Saudi intelligence chief Turki Faisal.  "Your effort in challenging this regime is legitimate and your resistance for the liberation of the Iranian people of all ethnicities, including Arabs, Kurds, Baluchis, Turks and Fars of the mullahs' evil, as [Iranian opposition leader Maryam] Rajavi said, is a legitimate struggle."

Even a brief glance at ongoing developments emerging domestically and abroad for Iran provides convincing evidence that regime change is absolutely in the making in Tehran.

 

سخنرانی مریم رجوی در گردهمایی بزرگ مقاومت ایران در پاریس تیر۱۳۹۶

Regime change in Iran is within reach

 Regime change in Iran is within reach

The Free Iran gathering, attended by tens of thousands of Iranians and hundreds of politicians, parliamentarians, religious leaders and activists from across the world