Trump’s targeting of Iran comes as Islamic leaders torture and kill 8,000 protesters

Iran’s rulers have inflicted death by torture and gunfire on citizen protesters in a crackdown since the Dec. 28 street uprising erupted, the main opposition group said Tuesday.

The Europe-based National Council of Resistance of Iran says the Islamic republic’s ubiquitous security apparatus has arrested more than 8,000 citizens and killed at least 50, all while the West has remained mostly silent. The council attributes at least five deaths to torture.

President Trump has spoken out in support of the protesters. The Treasury Department on Friday slapped further sanctions on the regime’s judiciary chief, Sadeq Amoli Larijani. Mr. Larijani has been singled out by the West for years for endorsing cruel punishments that include torture and amputation.

“As the head of the judiciary for the past nine years, Larijani is a key official in the regime’s suppressive apparatus, who has played a direct role in the execution of thousands of people, in the crackdown and arrest of dissidents, as well as in censorship and repression,” said Shahin Gobadi, a council spokesman based in Paris.

The opposition group said protests have spread to 130 cities. The protesters complain of dismal economic conditions, of military adventures in Iraq and Syria, and of being ruled by clerical Shiite Muslim hard-liners led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The council on Tuesday released a list of five resisters who it said were tortured to death by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its various security units.

Visit by European Officials to Iran Amidst Executions

Is insult to universal values of human rights

The Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran strongly condemns the visit of Ms. Mogherini and other European officials to Iran under the rule of religious fascism, and participation in the inauguration of its illegitimate president. These travels, while at least 101 executions took place in Iran in July, are an insult to the universal human rights values of which the EU considers itself as protector and defender.

Any investment in the mullahs’ regime - while all signs indicate that it is entering its final phase - are doomed to fail with losses, leaving only this image of Europe in the minds of the Iranian people that they are throwing a rescue rope toward the regime.

Rouhani, who wears a mask of moderation, has no other mission than to keep in power the system of Valayat-e-Faqih (supreme religious rule) and delaying its overthrow. The people of Iran, with the slogan "No to the executioner, no to the imposter; my vote is regime change," expressed their abhorrence toward the recent sham elections and its so-called "candidates", who were all appointed by the Supreme Leader of the regime. More than 3,000 prisoners have been executed during Rouhani’s first term as president. Rouhani describes these executions as carrying out "the law of God or the law approved by the Majlis". In 1980 in parliament he publicly called for the execution of the regime’s opponents during Friday prayers. He is one of the high ranking officials responsible for the suppression, the production of the nuclear bomb, warmongering and killings in the region.

Khamenei has repeatedly said, "If we did not stop the enemy in Syria, we would have to stop them in Tehran, Fars, Khorasan and Esfahan". Rouhani also confessed that if the Revolutionary Guards were "not resisting in Baghdad and Samarra, and in Fallujah and Ramadi, and if they did not help the Syrian government in Damascus and Aleppo, we would not have security to negotiate this well in the nuclear deal" (February 8, 2016).

Khamenei said on May 10, 2017: "The enemies want change in the behavior of the regime ... the change of behavior means the destruction of the Islamic system."

Rouhani's cabinet members have played a major role in the war, suppression and the export of terrorism and fundamentalism. His first term Minister of Justice, Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, was one of the key officials responsible for the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988.

During Rouhani’s tenure, suppression of political opponents and human rights defenders, workers, women, teachers, lawyers, journalists and internet activists have intensified. Political prisoners are not released even after the end of their sentences. Killings under torture, slow deaths and annihilation of prisoners, and suspicious deaths in prisons continue. Repression and discrimination against women, which are institutionalized in the regime’s laws, expanded with gender separation and suppressive law of "chastity and hijab". Different ethnic groups and nationalities were suppressed more than before. The repression of Sunni Muslims intensified, attacks on domestic churches and arbitrary detentions and pressure against followers of other religions intensified.

Investing in moderation in the Velayat-e Faqih regime, whose record includes 120,000 political executions, is tantamount to strengthening the harshest factions of the regime against the Iranian people and peace and tranquility in the region. No change in Iran can be imagined without the end of repression, execution and torture, aggressive meddling in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and ending the nuclear and missile projects. Any relationship with the Iranian regime must be made conditional upon a suspension of executions and an improvement of the human rights situation. This is the will of the Iranian people and is necessary for peace and tranquility in the region and the world.

Iranian dissidents rally in France for the overthrow of Iran’s theocracy

By The Washington Times - - Monday, July 17, 2017

VILLEPINTE, France — Thousands of supporters of an Iranian dissident group rallied here Saturday for the overthrow of Tehran’s theocratic regime at an event that featured speeches by several Trump administration allies — including Newt Gingrich and Rudolph W. Giuliani — as well as the former head of Saudi intelligence.

The boisterous event, held annually in this town just north of Paris, was organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a France-based group of Iranian exiles that brings dozens of current and former U.S., European and Middle Eastern officials together to speak out in support of regime change in Tehran.

While the Trump administration’s posture on the issue is elusive, Mr. Giuliani drew loud cheers by asserting that the new U.S. president’s view is far different from that of his predecessor, who led world powers to ease sanctions on the Islamic republic with the 2015 Iranian nuclear accord.

Mr. Trump is “laser-focused on the danger of Iran to the freedom of the world,” said Mr. Giuliani, who was perceived by many at the rally to be an emissary for Mr. Trump despite holding no formal Cabinet position in the administration.

Unlike the Obama administration, Mr. Trump “is not in a state of denial” on Iran, the former New York City mayor said.

“Iran must be free,” said Mr. Gingrich, a former House speaker who rallied the crowd by condemning Tehran’s record of human rights abuses.

The two, who were advisers to Mr. Trump’s election campaign, headed a U.S. delegation that included several former Democratic lawmakers as well as three active Republican congressmen — Reps. Ted Poe of Texas, Thomas A. Garrett Jr. of Virginia and Robert Pittenger of North Carolina.

But it was an appearance by Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, the former longtime Saudi intelligence chief, that may have been the most significant part of the rally.

“I salute you,” said the prince, who was in attendance for the second year in a row. His presence suggested that Saudi Arabia’s Sunni Muslim monarchy openly supports regime change in Iran — the Middle East’s Shiite powerhouse and Riyadh’s main rival.

Prince Turki bin Faisal’s appearance prompted speculation that the Saudis may even have helped finance the rally, although organizers flatly denied that, asserting instead that funding for the National Council of Resistance of Irancomes entirely in the form of donations from Iranians who are disgusted with the government in Tehran…

The rally was a marathon of speeches and musical performances… In attendance were more than a dozen current and former officials from EU nations, including former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner….

The most aggressive speech came from Maryam Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, who condemned the “religious dictatorship” of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and asserted that the regime is run by “executioners” who have imprisoned or killed tens of thousands of opposition figures since coming to power in 1979….

“Overthrow is possible and within reach,” she said. “Iranian society is simmering with discontent, and the international community is finally getting closer to the reality that appeasing the ruling theocracy is misguided.

“The only solution is regime change,” said Mrs. Rajavi, who has led the National Council of Resistance of Iran since its founder — her husband, Massoud Rajavi — went into hiding in 2003.

In an email interview with The Washington Times last year, she said the organization “represent[s] the voice of millions of Iranians who are being oppressed in their country and who seek regime change and the establishment of a democratic, pluralist and non-nuclear government based on the separation of religion and state.”

Supporters of the council say it is the most influential organization on the Iranian opposition landscape.

No one in the Iranian opposition “stands out the way the NCRI stands out” in terms of their “day to day engagement with the Iranian public,” said Ramesh Sepehrrad, a longtime Iranian-American women’s rights activist who works with George Mason University’s School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution.

Ms. Sepehrrad told a panel ahead of the rally that it is difficult to measure the council’s popularity inside Iran because the “regime has made the price very, very high for the Iranian people to express their support” for the movement.

“Thousands of their supporters and their family members have been executed and imprisoned by the regime,” she said.

Shahin Gobadi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s foreign affairs committee, said the group has become more active inside Iran over the past year. “People are realizing more and more, especially young people, that regime change is the only answer,” Mr. Gobadi told The Times.

• This excerpt is from a Washington Times staff-written news article that first published on July 1, 2017.

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