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Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat
World
Asharq Al-Awsat

Opposition Slams Raisi’s Election as Iran President

Banners of ultraconservative cleric and presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi, in Tehran, Iran. (AFP)

The opposition Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran slammed the election of Ebrahim Raisi as president.

President-Elect of the party Maryam Rajavi said: “Ebrahim Raisi, the henchman of the 1988 massacre and murderer of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK), is (supreme leader Ali) Khamenei's final bid to preserve his regime.”

“Weak, crisis-riddled, and rattled by looming uprisings, Khamenei purged all rivals to install Raisi as president, one of the vilest criminals against humanity since World War II,” she added.

Ultraconservative cleric Raisi, who was declared Iran's next president Saturday, should be investigated for alleged crimes against humanity and a “spiraling crackdown” on human rights, Amnesty International said.

Amnesty said Raisi was a member of the “Death Commission” that forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed in secret thousands of opposition prisoners in 1988 while serving as Tehran's deputy prosecutor.

Amnesty said the “fate of the victims and the whereabouts of their bodies are, to this day, systematically concealed by the Iranian authorities, amounting to ongoing crimes against humanity”.

The London-based pressure group said Raisi had “presided over a spiraling crackdown on human rights” while serving as Iran's judiciary chief for the past two years.

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