Last week, the main Iranian opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) celebrated the start of its 57th anniversary. In its biennial session, held simultaneously in Ashraf-3 (Albania), Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, London, The Hague, and Zurich, the MEK re-elected Zahra Merrikhi as its Secretary-General for another two years. Merrikhi introduced three new co-secretaries general and several other young women as new deputies.

Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), also attended the MEK session. In congratulating the re-election of Merrikhi as the MEK Secretary-General, she said: "The clerical regime engaged in relentless suppression and massacre as well as a continuing campaign of demonization in the past four decades in an attempt to destroy this movement. But it failed, and the MEK, steadfast and committed to its ideals, more prepared and stronger than ever, has organized a nationwide Resistance. Now, all signs point to the certainty of the clerical regime’s overthrow."

Also last week, Ebrahim Raisi’s cabinet of human rights abusers and globally wanted terrorists demonstrated Tehran’s intentions to accelerate its missile and nuclear weapons programs. This was put on display with the appointment of IRGC Brig. Gen. Mohammad Eslami. The appointment signals Tehran’s plans to move full speed ahead with its clandestine nuclear weapons activities, especially since Eslami was the regime’s principal liaison for acquiring atomic bomb knowledge from Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadir Khan.

This week's featured article about the 1988 massacre, entitled "Time to bring Iranian regime to justice," says: "An international investigation into Iran’s human rights violations and the 1988 crimes against humanity is a must. As threats to democracy and human rights increase across the world, the international community should muster the political resolve to punish the perpetrators, who continue to hold senior positions in the Iranian regime. Otherwise, there will certainly be more massacres and human rights abuses because the regime will perceive international silence as a license to kill."

Iran HRM (Sept. 2) - Hacked footage from security cameras in Iran’s Evin Prison and the publication of some of the prison’s documents published online by a group of hackers “Edalat-e Ali” (Ali’s Justice) revealed a fraction of the crimes committed in Iran’s prisons. The footage shows guards beating and dragging prisoners on the floor. The videos also show inmates attempting to commit suicide, overcrowded cells, and cells with horrible conditions. The release of these images provoked strong reactions from international human rights organizations. “This disturbing footage offers a rare glimpse of the cruelty regularly meted out to prisoners in Iran. It is shocking to see what goes on inside the walls of Evin prison, but sadly the abuse depicted in these leaked video clips is just the tip of the iceberg of Iran’s torture epidemic,” said Heba Morayef, Middle East and North Africa Regional Director at Amnesty International. ... In July, at least 26 death sentences were carried out in Iranian prisons. At least 15 executions were carried out for drug-related offenses and 10 were carried out for murder. The details and reason for the execution of another prisoner are not known. Read more...

Iran HRM (Sept. 1) - A former prisoner, Ebrahim Yousefi, recently divulged that political prisoner Haidar Ghorbani has been viciously tortured in prison. Ebrahim Yousefi was incarcerated in the Prison of Kamyaran on financial charges. Political prisoner Haidar Ghorbani was severely tortured in 2017. He is presently on the death row and in danger of imminent execution due to false confessions extracted from him under torture. “I met Haidar in the winter of 2017. He had been tortured for three months at the Department of Intelligence. The scars of torture on his left thigh were like three eggs. One could see injuries on both of his wrists and on his throat. He could not talk and constantly coughed. ... He had been badly tortured.” Ebrahim Yousefi also explained about how they extracted confessions from Haidar. “Every night, Haidar came to the ward at ten o’clock. I asked him about where he was. He said, ‘they take me for interrogation and want to make a film.’ They filmed him every night and forced him to confess. As far as I can remember, one of the torturers was Mr. Karimi, who was the head of the Sanandaj Intelligence Office. He harassed and hurt Haidar very much. He took films from him every night and forced him to make false confessions.” Read more...

Iran News Wire (Sept. 2) - An Iranian Bahai was detained yesterday by security forces in Tehran. According to the Human Rights News Agency, the Bahai was identified as Arsalan Yazdani. Arsalan was detained after security forces raided his home and confiscated some of his personal belongings. He was transferred to an unknown location. Iranian Bahais are systematically persecuted by the Iranian regime. Earlier this week, two Bahais identified as Abbas Taef and Attoallah Zafar were sentenced to a total of two years of prison. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, Iranian Bahais have been systematically persecuted as a matter of government policy. Read more...

Iran News Wire (Sept. 6) - A 4-year-old girl was injured after border police opened fire on her family’s car yesterday in Qalvaz western Iran. According to the Hengaw Organization website, the girl was identified as Haya Payam. She was in the car with her family when border police opened fire on their car within a close range. Haya was transferred to a hospital in Paveh and is currently in critical condition. According to the report, Haya’s father told border police they were returning home and have family members and children in the car, but they opened fire anyhow. Iranian police and security forces carry out these shootings with impunity. An annual report by a human rights group said at least 204 Iranian citizens were directly or indirectly targeted by Iran’s state security forces in 2020, 74 of whom lost their lives. Read more...

NCRI (Sept. 6) - The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) announced on Monday, September 6, 2021, that the Coronavirus fatalities in 547 cities across Iran had passed 408,800. Tehran City Council: Last week, the number of Coronavirus deaths in Tehran reached less than 160, but it has risen again and is rising throughout the country (Fars news agency, September 6, 2021). Qom University of Medical Sciences: Between 60 and 80% of COVID-19 patients who refer to the hospital emergency room are in critical condition, and we need to think of increasing the ICUs (IRNA news agency, September 6, 2021). Read more...

Iran News Wire (Sept. 1) - The Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor in Yasuj, southwestern Iran said today that a citizen was detained for torching the statue of Qasem Soleimani, the dead chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp’s Quds Force. According to the state-run ISNA News Agency, after the video of the burning statue was published on social media, security forces identified the “culprit”. Ali Malek Hosseini, the Yasuj Prosecutor said the “culprit” was transferred to prison following his “confession” during interrogations. The name of the detained citizen was not stated in the report. Qasem Soleimani was killed during a US airstrike at the Baghdad airport in the early hours of January 3. Iranians celebrated the terrorists’ death by serving sweets and dancing in the streets. Read more...

PMOI (Sept. 2) - These days, Iranian regime officials and state-run media are using terms such as “explosive” and “unbridled” to describe skyrocketing prices in Iran’s markets, which are breaking the people’s backs. Meanwhile, the people of Iran are faced with the added pressure of the worsening coronavirus pandemic. Pictures and videos being posted on social media by the Iranian people are heart-rending, especially given that Iran is rich in resources: People bent waist deep in trash bins, looking for food; farmers crying out that they can’t provide for their families; labor children hawking goods in the streets and polishing shoes to make ends meet; and many more. Regime-run newspapers openly admit to the dire economic situation. The Sabzineh newspaper ran a piece on August 31, titled, “The explosive rise in prices of food items in the past months.” And the ILNA news agency published a piece titled, “Construction workers are dying to earn their bread.” Read more...

NCRI (Editorial, Sept. 3) - Raisi’s cabinet of corrupt thieves, human rights abusers, and globally wanted terrorists – a squad of cannibals – proves that the regime is hell-bent on pursuing a repressive agenda at home and destabilizing activities abroad. It also demonstrates Tehran’s intentions to accelerate its missile and nuclear weapons programs. This was put on display with the appointment of IRGC Brig. Gen. Mohammad Eslami. The appointment signals Tehran’s plans to move full speed ahead with its clandestine nuclear weapons activities, especially since Eslami was the regime’s principal liaison for acquiring atomic bomb knowledge from Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadir Khan. Eslami has also served as the director of the Defense Training and Research Institute of the Ministry of Defense and Logistics of the Armed Forces (2004-2007). His core mission at the time was to conduct research on nuclear weapons. He personifies the IRGC’s attempts to acquire nuclear weapons by tapping into the global black market. Back in 1986 and 1987, when the regime’s nuclear program was still in its nascent stages, Eslami headed an IRGC delegation that met with Abdul Qadir Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb. The meeting was coordinated by Reza Amrollahi, the then head of the Atomic Energy Organization. The NCRI exposed this information in detail on August 26, 2005, during a press conference in Washington, D.C. Read more...

NCRI (Sept. 3) - UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances joined the call for an international investigation into the 1988 massacre. “The Working Group reiterates the concerns expressed about the ongoing concealment of burial sites of those forcibly disappeared and allegedly executed between July and September 1988 across the country. The Working Group recalls that an enforced disappearance continues until the fate and whereabouts of the individuals concerned are established and joins the call for an international investigation into the matter,” the report reads. In the summer of 1988, over 30,000 political prisoners were executed. Most of the victims were the members and supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). Recently the Iranian Resistance held a conference that focused equal attention upon details of that massacre as recalled by its survivors and upon legal issues relating to it. Read more...

Blitz (Sept. 7) - Recently, I and 16 survivors of the 1988 massacre in Iran recounted our harrowing experiences. Still, the troubling eyewitness accounts barely scratch the surface of a massacre in which 30,000 dissidents, 90 percent belonged to the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), were murdered. Perpetrators of the massacre in places like Evin Prison in Tehran emptied out entire cells housing dozens of people, as well as entire halls housing hundreds. But in certain other prisons, political detainees were fully isolated from the general population and then wiped out completely, leaving no one but the prison authorities to describe what had happened. ... The surest way to challenge Tehran’s impunity in this matter is by launching the sort of formal inquiry that the NCRI has been demanding for years now. Other human rights defenders, such as Amnesty International, have joined in that effort while emphasizing that the longer the massacre goes unexamined, the more evidence the regime will manage to sweep under the rug. Already, several of the mass graves have been hidden underneath roadways and large-scale construction projects, even as activists inside Iran have sought to expose them to the world. Read more...

NCRI Women (Aug. 30) - More than 1,000 witnesses of the 1988 massacre in Iran convened in an online conference on Friday, August 27, 2021. The event featured dozens of jurists and experts in international law and the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the architect of the Iranian Call for Justice Movement. Mrs. Rajavi underscored, “The 1988 massacre is a clear example of genocide. In January 2010, Ebrahim Raisi, the regime’s current president, declared that ‘All Mojahedin are enemies of God and punishable by death.’” She called on the U.S. and Europe to recognize the 1988 massacre as genocide and crime against humanity. “They must not accept Raisi in their countries. They must prosecute and hold him accountable,” she added. Madam Dominique Attias, a jurist, was among the speakers at the conference, which marked the 33rd anniversary of the 1988 massacre. Ms. Attias is the President of the European Bars Federation, with more than one million lawyers as its members. She was vice-batonniere of Paris from January 2016 and the first woman to hold this position. She was also a recipient of France’s Légion d’Honneur in 2011. Ms. Attias said in her remarks: “Mrs. Rajavi, you are a shining star in the depth of darkness. Today is a significant and sensitive day. We know what is happening in Iran. (But) the light of hope comes from Iranian women. Thanks to you, the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and the men along your side, all these women, all these young women, will be avenged. (The Iranian regime) caused chaos and destruction. They took many lives. Mothers, sisters, and children are still grieving. Yes, we are talking about genocide. We are talking about a crime against humanity. But enough is enough! Enough of Europe and the entire world turning a blind eye to these crimes. Today, a mass murderer with bloody hands is ruling Iran. I saw his endorsement in the parliament, but you and we will not accept this. Iranian women will never accept this because the status of women is a fundamental issue. Women were physically eliminated in 1988. Hardly any of them survived the slaughter. If we close our eyes on this incident, it will also happen in our countries." Read more...

Al-Arabiya (Sept. 4) - An attempted Iran-backed Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia left two children injured and 14 residential homes damaged on Saturday, according to a statement by the Saudi Ministry of Defense. Saudi Arabia intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles and three explosive-laden drones launched by the extremist militia towards the Kingdom’s Eastern Region, Jizan, and Najran, ministry spokesman Brigadier General Turki al-Maliki said. Al-Maliki added that the interception caused shrapnel to scatter over a neighborhood in Dammam’s suburb, which resulted in the injury of two Saudi children. Fourteen residential houses were slightly damaged during the process. Brigadier-General al-Maliki indicated that this barbaric and irresponsible behavior by the militia in trying to target civilians and civilian objects, is incompatible with heavenly values and humanitarian principles. Read more...

NCRI (Sept. 4) - On August 19, AP reported that “The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said Thursday that an Iranian fuel tanker would sail toward Lebanon ‘within hours.’” This was the first fuel shipment from Iran to Lebanon. AP asserted that “the delivery, organized by the Iran-backed Hezbollah, would violate U.S. sanctions. The regime claims it has insufficient fuel for power plants, thus uses fuel oil, which causes air pollution, ultimately adding to people’s respiratory problems as more people get infected with Covid-19. Constant blackouts in Iran disrupt people’s daily lives and increases the Covid-19 casualties as the oxygen machines stop functioning. “According to Dr. Hamid Emadi, Head of Infectious Diseases Department, of Khomeini Hospital these days, power outages have plagued patients diagnosed with Covid-19 with acute pulmonary problems. This is because one of the most basic treatments for these patients is the use of an oxygen machine,” the state-run Jahan-e Sanat daily acknowledged on May 24. In addition to the Covid-19 outbreak, people had a difficult time during summer with its scorching heat. ... The question now is why the regime is risking its domestic security? The answer in simple words is “priority.” Since its foundation, the mullahs’ regime has tried to export domestic crisis by supporting terrorist groups. When criticized for propping Bashar-Al Assad’s dictatorship in Syria, the regime’s top officials asserted that if they “do not fight in Syria,” they would have to “fight in the streets of Tehran.” The regime has funded and supported the Lebanese Hezbollah. In recent years, with Tehran’s support, Hezbollah has become a major force in Lebanon, controlling most of the country’s top positions. Read more...

Blitz (Sept. 7) - In its biennial session, held simultaneously in Ashraf-3 (Albania), Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, London, The Hague, and Zurich, on the 57th anniversary of its founding on September 5, 2021, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) re-elected Zahra Merrikhi, as its Secretary-General for another two years. Zohreh Akhyani, the head of the MEK’s Central Council, chaired the session, in which she provided a report on the September 3 session of the Central Council. The Council had approved Merrikhi’s re-election and the renewal of her term as the Secretary-General in its session and proposed the ratification of its decision to the MEK as a whole. Merrikhi congratulated the start of the MEK’s 57th founding anniversary, noting that the Organization’s longevity reflects the failure of the dictatorships of the Shah and the Sheikh (the mullahs) to annihilate the Mujahedin-e Khalq and heralds the triumph of the enchained people of Iran. In reading parts of her letter last month to the heads of the MEK’s various departments, Merrikhi underscored that there were many women among those present at the session, such as Narges Azdanlou and Badri Pour-Tabbakh, who were fully capable and qualified to become the MEK’s Secretary-General and that she had put their names forward as candidates for the position. Read more...

The UN Security Council has remained silent in the face of the Iranian regime’s increasing and egregious human rights violations.

Videos leaked by a hacking group last month revealed abuse, including beatings and other harsh treatment of detainees, carried out in Iran’s most notorious prison, Evin.

In a rare move, the regime admitted the abuse and the head of Iran’s prisons, Mohammed Mehdi Hajmohammadi, apologized. He tweeted: “Regarding the pictures from Evin prison, I accept responsibility for such unacceptable behavior and pledge to try to prevent any repeat of these bitter events and to deal seriously with the wrongdoers. I apologize to God Almighty, our dear leader (Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei), the nation, and honorable prison guards, whose efforts will not be ignored due to these mistakes.”

Such abuses in Iran’s prisons are systemic, but unfortunately the Iranian leaders have enjoyed impunity. Amnesty International, which has analyzed 16 leaked video clips, stated: “Leaked surveillance footage from Evin prison showing appalling abuse of prisoners serves as a chilling reminder of the impunity granted to prison officials in Iran who subject those in their custody to torture and other cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.”

It is important to point out that this is not an isolated incident. The regime’s modus operandi is anchored in abuse, the mistreatment of opponents and dissidents, and the employment of brute force and torture. Last month, more than 1,000 survivors of the Iranian regime’s prisons and massacres gathered to recount their horrifying stories to the world. The former political prisoners and witnesses of torture and brutal killings in Iran’s prisons appeared at a virtual conference that was also attended by hundreds of prominent international dignitaries, including foreign ministers and human rights advocates from Europe and North America.

One of the key issues the international community must focus on is putting an end to the culture of impunity enjoyed by regime leaders. It can do this by prosecuting Khamenei, President Ebrahim Raisi, Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei and others for their egregious human rights violations.

In one of the most horrific crimes committed by a dictatorship in the Middle East and perhaps the world, Iran’s 1988 massacre saw the clerical regime execute at least 30,000 political prisoners, more than 90 percent of whom were reportedly members of the main opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq. They were most likely killed because of their political beliefs and commitment to bringing about a free and democratic Iran.

The regime has always wanted to annihilate all opposition to its rule — a devastating trend that has led to a ruined economy, disastrous social conditions, ongoing crimes against humanity, and a massively botched response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has taken the lives of more than 100,000 Iranians.

The 1988 massacre is a clear example of genocide. In 2010, Raisi declared that “All mojahedin are enemies of God and punishable by death.” The regime is particularly concerned about the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a broad coalition of democratic organizations that presents the most popular, credible and organized alternative to its rule. NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi, a charismatic Muslim woman, has led an international campaign calling for justice for the 1988 massacre victims and their families. Last week, she tweeted: “The Call-for-Justice movement is synonymous with perseverance and resistance to overthrow this regime and establish freedom.” The group has called on the US and Europe to recognize the 1988 massacre as genocide and a crime against humanity, and to hold Raisi accountable.

The international community, particularly the US and the EU, must now take the lead on this issue. The world must realize that there are no moderates in the Iranian regime and that the Iranian people are demanding its overthrow.

Raisi was, in 1988, part of a four-member “death committee” that issued execution orders for thousands of innocent prisoners. Therefore, no country in the world and no credible international forum must accept him. He must instead be prosecuted and held accountable for his horrific crimes. That is exactly what the Iranian people and the organized opposition have called for.

The UN’s secretary-general, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Human Rights Council, special rapporteurs, and international human rights organizations must be allowed to visit the Iranian regime’s prisons and meet with inmates, especially political prisoners. The regime’s human rights violations must also be tabled at the UN Security Council.

An international investigation into Iran’s human rights violations and the 1988 crimes against humanity is a must. As threats to democracy and human rights increase across the world, the international community should muster the political resolve to punish the perpetrators, who continue to hold senior positions in the Iranian regime.

Otherwise, there will certainly be more massacres and human rights abuses because the regime will perceive international silence as a license to kill.