Raisi

An Iranian mass-murderer is dead.

President Ibrahim Raisi, 63, also known as the Butcher of Teheran, was killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday along with his foreign minister and several other officials.

Raisi loyally served the Islamic Republic for 45 years.

During that time, he served as deputy prosecutor of Karaj as an expert on sharia. In 1984 he was appointed deputy chief of the Revolutionary Court and in 1988 deputy prosecutor of Teheran. In this capacity he directed the execution of thousands of political prisoners thereby earning his reprehensible nickname.

He continued to rise in the ranks.

From June 2012 to September 2021, he was the prosecutor of the Special Clerical Court, an institution established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and operating outside the judiciary, directly overseen by the Supreme Leader, dealing with clerical infringements.

In 2021, Raisi won the presidency, winning with one of the lowest turnouts in the history of revolutionary Iran.

The President of the Islamic Republic serves as an administrator.

All policy decisions are made by the Supreme Leader—first Ayatollah Khomeini and then his successor Ayatollah Khamenei. In 2022, Raisi responded to the uprising caused by the arrest and murder in jail of Mahsa Amini, a young girl who dared appear on the street with her hijab badly placed. There followed the murder of hundreds of demonstrators and the imprisonment of hundreds more.

Today, the execution of those who protest the Islamic Republic’s regime and its support for Hamas continues unchecked, including many prominent artists, singers, and intellectuals.

This uprising, as others throughout the history of the Islamic Republic, was put down by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This force, recognised as a terrorist group by many governments (but not the Canadian government that has somehow refused to do so thus far), appears to have absolute power in dealing torture and death to those who oppose the regime.

Some readers will recall that when Iranians revolted against the Shah in 1978-79, the military, the strongest in the region, mostly refused to fire upon the Iranian public, leading to the Shah’s downfall. The military viewed their role as defending Iranians against attacks and not attacking their own people.

The Ayatollahs learned this lesson and immediately set up the IRGC to be loyal to them rather than to Iranians. They were given carte blanche to use any terror force necessary to keep the public in line and to eliminate all opponents to the regime.

Thus, while Riasi has left the scene, it now remains for the Supreme Leader to accept his vice-president’s ascension to the presidency, and he will choose someone committed to the status quo.

Many Iranians at home and abroad hope that this will be the spark that ignites a change of regime. I hope it does.

But I temper my wish with a dose of reality.

The IRGC will apply any vicious response to any danger to the Islamic Republic from within the country.

Thus, change will not be easy, nor will the loosening of controls by the regime to stay in power.

While Iran’s women are today highly educated and Iran’s youth yearn for Western freedoms, any uprising would likely turn into a bloodbath of major proportions.

And that would entail one more tragedy for a people who deserve better.