The NGO Amnesty International denounced this Saturday the election to the presidency in Iran of the ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raïssi, affirming that the latter should be the subject of an investigation for "
crimes against humanity
" and "
brutal repression
" human rights.
Read also: Iran: how the entourage of the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guards took over the state apparatus
"
The fact that Ebrahim Raïssi took the presidency instead of being investigated for crimes against humanity, murder, enforced disappearances and torture, is a grim reminder that impunity reigns supreme in Iran.
Amnesty accused in a statement. The London-based human rights organization accused Ebrahim Raïssi of having been a member of a "
Death Commission
" which it said was responsible for the enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the secret of thousands of opponents detained while serving as deputy prosecutor of the Tehran Revolutionary Court in 1988.
Asked in 2018 and 2020 about these executions, Ebrahim Raïssi denied having played any role in them, but paid "
tribute
" to the "
order
" given, according to him, by Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran , to proceed with this purification.
According to Amnesty, "
the fate of the victims and the location of the bodies are to this day systematically concealed by the Iranian authorities, which (also) corresponds to crimes against humanity
".
Systemic impunity in Iran
Ebrahim Raïssi, she again accused, has "
presided over a brutal repression of human rights
" during his tenure as head of the Judicial Authority for the past two years. The crackdown has affected "
hundreds of peaceful dissidents, human rights activists and members of persecuted minorities who have been arbitrarily detained
," according to the NGO.
"
(...) He is also responsible for the arrest of thousands of demonstrators and hundreds of enforced disappearances (...) after the protest demonstrations of November 2019
" repressed in blood, according to the same source. Amnesty called on member states of the UN Human Rights Council to take "
concrete steps to address systematic impunity in Iran
".
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