West has a chance to bring Iranian regime to heel at UN Security Council

This Islamic Republic of Iran is mired in crises, few of which stem from US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and the subsequent renewed economic sanctions. Those actions only serve to help the US, and hopefully the international community as a whole, in putting pressure on Iran’s clerical regime at a time when it is most vulnerable and least likely to conceal the misdeeds that make such pressure necessary.

 

Iran’s national currency, the rial, plumbed new depths this month, trading at more than 150,000 to the US dollar. The new figures provoked further economic protests in various Iranian cities, in what has become the status quo in recent months. The Iranian people view the economic catastrophe as part of the broader failings of the Iranian government, and many of the protests have accordingly taken on an unequivocal message of opposition to the regime in its entirety.

 

Activists have chanted “death to the dictator” and “death to Rouhani,” in reference to the country’s supreme leader and its president. Others have doubled down on the condemnation of both political factions of the clerical regime, while also rejecting the regime’s attempts to dismiss the unrest as the product of some foreign conspiracy. “The enemy is here,” protesters declared, according to independent Iranian news outlets and witnesses on social media. “They are lying when they say it is America.”

 

But the Iranian people are not simply declining to blame the West for their problems. The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a major driver of the protest movement, insists that the Iranian people are in fact calling out to the US and Europe to stand with them as they take hold of the solutions to their problems.

 

We can do this by focusing international attention on the human rights abuses with which the Iranian regime responds to any and all popular threats to its hold on power. We can also weaken the regime’s repressive infrastructure by building a broader consensus for economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation that will ultimately force the mullahs to respond to the crises they are presently trying to suppress.

 

A combination of internal and external pressure could finally bring the Iranian regime to heel, thereby ushering in both democracy at home and security abroad.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

The worsening economic and social conditions, along with the popular response to them, amplify the inherent potential of assertive Western policies. 

 

Clearly, the Trump administration’s decision to convene the UN Security Council to discuss Iran-related issues on Sept. 26 comes at an auspicious time, providing an opportunity to condemn the latest arrests and human rights violations involving peaceful protesters, and to underscore the ineffectiveness of those measures. The 2018 Iran Uprising Summit planned in advance of that meeting will echo this message.

 

In August alone, Iranian authorities arrested approximately 1,000 protesters. In January, in the midst of the nationwide uprising, arrests exceeded 8,000. Arrest in the Islamic Republic usually involves long periods of isolation, followed by torture, as security forces clamor for false confessions to support political charges. 

Recent examples are numerous and come as no surprise to Western observers, after several American and European nationals were caught up in the regime’s efforts to suppress all manner of perceived threats to its hard-line Islamist identity.

Visitors to the Islamic Republic are not the only Westerners at risk from the regime’s desperate bid to resolve its domestic crises through violence. The acknowledged role of the MEK in the uprising has prompted Tehran to target the popular democratic resistance group outside of Iran. Fortunately, all serious attacks have been thwarted so far, but had they managed to slip past European security services, terrible damage was plotted in March against the MEK community in Albania. On June 30, targets included hundreds of American and European dignitaries attending an international rally outside Paris organized by adherents of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and its president-elect, Maryam Rajavi.

The unraveling of the latter attack led to the arrest of Assadollah Assadi, a high-level diplomat at the Iranian embassy in Vienna, who masterminded the plot hatched at the highest levels in Tehran. His arrest exposed a terrorist operative hidden at the heart of Europe, and that Tehran’s anxiety at the domestic unrest and the MEK’s advances outweighs all other considerations, including relations with the EU.

A continuation of rights abuses in Iran means a perpetuation of terror threats abroad, while preventing Tehran from further abuses in one of these areas will ultimately make the regime’s entire project of self-preservation unsustainable.

The recent terror attempts should make it apparent to both sides of the Atlantic that Western interests and the Iranian people’s interests are one and the same. A combination of internal and external pressure could finally bring that regime to heel, thereby ushering in both democracy in Iran and security abroad. This is a message that should be emphasized at the Security Council this month.

• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view

7.4 million Iranian children deprived of education

Approximately 327,000 children in the streets of Tehran who weren’t going to school

It is no secret that the Iranian regime spends billions of dollars on its terrorist and extremist ambitions abroad. And these foreign expenditures, aimed at preserving the regime’s hold on power at home and the region, are not only taking their toll on the livelihoods of the people of Iran but are also negatively affecting the lives of the future generations of Iran.

On September 14, Iran’s Ruydad news website published a report in which it revealed damning statistics about the educational conditions of children inside Iran. According to this state-run website, Iranian regime officials are offering conflicting accounts of how many Iranian children have or don’t have access to basic education. Writes the site: “Like many other national statistics, the exact number of children who have been deprived of education is not available. The figures offered by the ministry education differs from that of the Well-being Organization. The Mardom-Nahad body and other NGOs also offer different information.”

The report concludes that such differences between the figures itself speak to the criticality of the situation.

According to Ruydad, the caretaker of the Iranian regime’s labor ministry says that in the first three months of the Persian year (March-June), the government has identified approximately 327,000 children in the streets of Tehran who weren’t going to school. This is the statistics offered by the Well-being Organization.

Taking this figure as a basis to offset the entire country, in the most optimistic calculation, in which the uneducated children of other provinces (31 in total) are estimated at a third of Tehran, the total sums up to around 3.5 million children across the country who aren’t going to school.

The Ruydad report writes: “The situation could be worse than this: According to the most recent consensus, the country’s 7- to 19-year-old population is around 20 million people. If we compare this figure to the last consensus, which counted 12.6 million Iranian students, the count of children deprived of education spikes to 7.4 million!”

Despite all of the evidence, during the presidency of Hassan Rouhani and his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian regime’s education ministry never acknowledged these statistics.

Farideh Oladghobad, a member of the education and research commission in the Iranian regime’s parliament, says, “A while ago, the head of education in one of the counties of Golestan province approached us and said that they are faced with a large number of children who aren’t going to school, most of them being girls.”

Oladghobad added, “We don’t have accurate figures of the number of children who have been deprived of education across the country. For example, in Sistan and Baluchestan province, where the living conditions are harsh, our estimates are 100,000 uneducated children, but we don’t know if the other provinces are worse or not.”

According to the Iranian regime’s constitution, the government is responsible for providing quality education to all Iranian children, but the MP lays the blame at the feet of the people themselves, adding that the regime will be ratifying new regulations to penalize families who don’t send their children to school, not taking into account that a large portion of the population is living in substandard conditions and are struggling to make ends meet.

This will provide the Iranian regime with yet another excuse to tax the people and empty their pockets of their last rials.

According to the statistics provided by international bodies and the Iranian opposition, the Iranian regime spends a nearly $16-25 billion on the war in Syria, where it is struggling to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad against opposition forces. This amount alone is more than enough to pay for the educational expenses of students in Iran and to renovate schools across the country.

According to a recent report by the state-run Mehr newspaper, there are 32,000 primary schools for more than 4 million students across the country, and 300,000 educational personnel are working in these schools. Many of the buildings of these schools are so decayed that they might collapse or cave-in, Mehr warns.

This is just a glimpse of the crimes that the Iranian regime is committing against the people of Iran. As far as the people are concerned, they’ve made it clear that their miseries, including their children’s lack of access to proper education, will only end when the mullahs’ regime is gone, a fact they’ve made clear in their ongoing protests across the country where they are chanting slogans against the regime in its entirety.

Residents of earthquake-stricken Kermanshah sell their kidneys to survive!

Some residents selling their kidneys to gain money to rebuild their homes

Ten months have passed since an earthquake hit Kermanshah and dozens of aftershocks have kept the fear of a new catastrophe looming over the city and its population. But a new earthquake isn’t the most imminent danger that threatens to accelerate the deterioration of living conditions.

Fati, a 32-year-old housewife, says that they still don’t have a proper tent for living. With two four- and six-year-old kids she has to live with four other relatives in a tent that was originally created for four people.

The housing situation is so catastrophic that some of the residents are reportedly selling their kidneys in order to rebuild their homes.

In an interview with Iran’s Ilna news agency on September 14, Sarpol-e Zahab’s City Council Chairman accuses Hassan Rouhani’s administration of inaction and considers this the reason why some citizens are selling their kidneys.

He adds: “The mental situation of the citizens is very troubling. Hygiene and sanitation are very inadequate, and the municipality hasn’t yet given us any money to do something. I wish the Ministry of Interior would say what services they’ve provided for a city like Sarpol-e Zahab.”

On September 5, Irna news agency wrote about the housing situation: “Earthquake-stricken [families] with sick or elderly members or little children are more concerned, because if they don’t succeed in building their shelters, they have to spend a second cold winter in makeshift Conex houses and tents, not to mention the grueling summer heat they have to bear right now.”

And while the situation is far from normalized, state agencies are leaving the area one after another.

“On arrival, many of the agencies which came to the area, put up banners in the city saying that they will stand together with the earthquake victims until the end. Unfortunately, many agencies didn’t stay in the area and declared that they want to leave,” says Sarpol-e Zahab’s City Council Chairman.

On June 23, Iran’s Parliament news agency quoted an MP from Kermanshah saying: “Arrangements were made to give villages 350-million- and cities 400-million-rial loans but unfortunately, it was never realized.”

On August 18, Mehr news agency published a story-like report about the situation in Kermanshah nine months after the earthquake. Describing the situation of a family in Sarpol-e Zahab the report says: “She opens water on the soap that covers the 4-5-year-old boy’s face. The child’s body crumples under the sudden impact of the water’s cold temperature.”

The 40-year-old mother who lost her two brothers in the earthquake says: “I wash the kids in the toilet. We have one toilet for 40 people.” Referring to politicians and state affiliated celebrities who make empty promises and show off without helping them she continues: “Some people come here and take photos with our miseries.”

Mullahs’ Terror Machine On The Move – OpEd

Iran's Grand Ayatollah Seyyed  Ali Khamenei. Photo by Seyedkhan, Wikipedia Commons.

The civilized world should take the threatening signs coming from Tehran serious. In this day and age and with likes of ISIS and Al-Qaeda still running around, warning shots from the theocratic regime in Iran should be taken with utmost caution. Some may interpret them as signs of strength but history has thought us that such behaviors are actually signs of absolute desperation and weakens.

The latest in the chain of events regarding Iranian regime’s covert activities outside Iran was uncovered by the US Justice Department on August 20. The Justice Department’s statement implicates two Iranian individuals — Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar and Majid Ghorbani — spying on Iranian dissidents. The main target according to the statement is members and supporters of main Iranian opposition the People’s Mojahedin organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).

“On or about Sept. 20, 2017, Ghorbani is alleged to have attended a MEK rally in New York City, during which he photographed individuals participating in the protest against the current Iranian regime. In or about December 2017, Doostdar returned to the United States from Iran and made contact with Ghorbani in the Los Angeles area. During the meeting, Doostdar paid Ghorbani approximately $2,000 in cash and Ghorbani delivered to him 28 photographs taken at the September 2017 MEK rally, many of which contained hand-written annotations identifying the individuals who appeared in the photos. These photographs, along with a hand-written receipt for $2000, were found concealed in Doostdar’s luggage as he transited a U.S. airport on his return to Iran in December 2017,” the statement added.

It also says: ‘The indictment also alleges that Ghorbani traveled to Iran in or about March 2018, after informing Doostdar that he would be going to Iran to conduct an “in-person briefing.” Thereafter, on or about May 4, Ghorbani attended the MEK-affiliated 2018 Iran Freedom Convention for Human Rights in Washington, D.C. During the course of the conference, Ghorbani appeared to photograph certain speakers and attendees, which included delegations from across the United States. On May 14, Doostdar called Ghorbani to discuss clandestine methods Ghorbani should use in order to provide this information to Iran.”

Since early summer, the Iranian regime lost all hopes of hiding its true intentions for entering the nuclear deal with the West. It removed the mask and showed its ugly face. In late June, distant memories of Iranian regime’s capabilities in terrorism craft came to life when one of its top diplomats caught red handed in plotting a major terrorist attack on the big annual rally of Iran’s main opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Paris.

Terror plot

Even as the rally unfolded, a terrorist plot intending to target it was foiled by security forces in France with the help of their German and Belgian partners. Timing of the plot was significant because Hassan Rouhani was scheduled to visit Austria the next day.

Assadollah Assadi masterminded the plot while under diplomatic immunity from Austrian government. He was stationed in Vienna. Assadi was caught red-handed when he was giving the explosives and detonator to a sleeping cell, an Iranian born Belgian couple to carry out the attack.

To put some flesh on the bones, the Iranian regime’s history is marred by terrorism and hostage taking for political gains. It all began with taking American diplomats hostage for 444 days in Tehran in late 70s.

Attacks on EU soil

This is not the first plot of its kind on the European soil. On April 24, 1990, Kazem Rajavi was gunned down in broad daylight by several agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security of Iran as he was driving to his home in Coppet, a village near Geneva.

He was Iran’s first Ambassador to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Shortly after his appointment, he resigned his post in protest to the “repressive policies and terrorist activities of the ruling clerics in Iran”.

The Mykonos restaurant in Berlin where four Kurdish-Iranian leaders were assassinated by the Quds Force Special units in 1992 was another notorious terror attack on European soil.

Referring to Assadollah Assadi arrest in Germany, a US official said that “the administration takes the arrest of the diplomat “very seriously” and sees it as evidence that Iran is using diplomatic compounds in Europe and elsewhere as cover to plot terrorist attacks.

The official dismissed Iranian suggestions that it was a “false flag” operation intended to falsely accused Iran of terrorism. The same US official also said: “If Iran can plot bomb attacks in Paris, they can plot attacks anywhere in the world, and we urge all nations to be vigilant about Iran using embassies as diplomatic cover to plot terrorist attacks.”

Had it not been foiled in time, it would have claimed the lives of thousands including top former officials from US, Canada and the Arab countries.

Iranian regime’s terror machine in full swing

With the arrest made on American soil, it is abundantly clear that the regime is after its main enemy: the Mojahedin. Make no mistake that the mullahs’ regime since its inception has always consider the MEK a vital threat to its existence. The Revolutionary Guards top brass day in, day out hardly miss any opportunity to warn against MEK’s involvement in galvanizing the protests in Iran.

Since January and new round of nationwide protests in Iran, the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei openly pointed his blaming finger at the MEK for leading the protests.

The regime officials regret missing the opportunity to wipe out the MEK members in Iraq. Now that they have moved to Albania in Europe IRGC is having a hard time terrorizing them.

A statement issued by the NCRI’s Security and Antiterrorism Committee drops the curtain on the IRGC and Quds Forces’ intentions of dealing with the MEK threat.

It says: “The regime’s Supreme Security Council, in an instruction to the Ministry of Intelligence, the terrorist Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence and other agencies involved in export of terrorism and fundamentalism, ordered them to take further measures to spy on the PMOI and the Iranian Resistance and to set the stage for terrorist acts. The Ministry of Intelligence stations in various European countries were ordered to collect more information from movements and activities and to use more resources.”

What has happen just in the summer is alarming for the US and especially the EU governments. It seems that the IRGC and its Quds Force take the role of MEK in leading the protests inside the country very seriously. They have shifted their undivided attention to wake up as many sleeping sells they have in Europe and the US to engage in terrorist attacks on members of the Iranian Resistance.

*Reza Shafiee is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). He tweets @shafiee_shafiee

Iran’s IRGC chief saber rattling about threats

IRGC chief Mohammad Ali Jafari making ridiculous claims about the Iranian regime’s missile capabilities

The Iranian regime’s state-run Tasnim news agency, associated to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Quds Force, covered the bogus remarks made by IRGC chief Mohammad Ali Jafari, aimed at lifting the spirits of the Iranian regime’s forces.

“Today, having a large number of precision ballistic missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers provides an unprecedented capability for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Our nation, relying on these powers and the capability of our dependable forces, are able to stand in the face of global arrogant forces,” he said.

It is worth noting that international experts are debunking and ridiculing such claims.

“Those who have bases, troops, and equipment within 2,000 kilometers of Iran’s sacred soil should know that all of the IRGC’s missiles are very precise… the IRGC’s recent revenge of terrorists sent a very meaningful message to our enemies, especially superpowers who believe they can enforce their devious objectives upon us,” Safavi added.

Of course, a few hours after the mullahs’ claims of targeting Iranian Kurdish dissident groups using precision-guided missiles from inside Iran, military experts debunked Tehran’s claims by showing how the mullahs’ actually launched their missiles from inside Iraq at a range of about 20 kilometers.

The Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) claimed responsibility for a recent missile attack targeting Iranian Kurdish dissidents based in Iraq. This missile barrage on the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) site coincided with the execution of three Kurdish political prisoners early Saturday morning local time in Gohardasht (Rajaie Shahr) Prison of Karaj, west of Tehran.

The IRGC statement claims the objective was to end “aggressive measures against Iran.”

“The missile unit of the IRGC Air & Space Force, in cooperation with the IRGC Ground Forces Drone Unit, targeted a group’s base and the session on Saturday with seven short-range surface-to-surface missiles,” the statement adds. 

KDP statement

The KDP issues a statement on mullahs’ vicious crimes saying the KDP Political Office base came under an IRGC aerial attack while the party’s Central Committee was holding a session. The KDP restated that when facing an increasing wave of domestic unrest at home and international political/economic pressures, the Islamic republic regime resorts to the crackdown, aggression, crimes and terrorist measures against freedom lovers of Kurdistan and Iran inside the country and abroad.

15 KDP members were killed and nearly 40 others were injured, the Kurdish dissident group specified in another statement. Four KDP Central Committee members, including Karim Mahdavi, Ebrahim Ebrahimi, Nasrin Haddad, Rahman Pirouti and two life-long members of the Central Committee, Soheila Ghaderi and Hashem Aziza, were among those killed in this missile attack. 

Iranian Resistance condemnation

Iranian opposition President Maryam Rajavi strongly condemned the execution of three Kurdish political prisoners and the missile attack launched against the Kurdistan Democratic Party by the mullahs’ regime, describing these measures as crimes against humanity and called for immediate measures by the United Nations Security Council.

Mrs. Rajavi called on the people of Kurdistan and all of Iran to rise in uprisings and protest.

“I call on the courageous people of #Kurdistan & across #Iran to rise up against the anti-human mullahs’ regime that is hell-bent on stepping up terror, repression, executions, and missile attacks to extinguish the people’s uprising. But it will take that wish to the grave,” Rajavi said in a tweet.

Geneva conference calls for inquiry into the massacre of Iranian political prisoners

Dignitaries, politicians reiterated the need to investigate the 1988 massacre in Iran

In a conference held in Geneva, Switzerland, dignitaries, and politicians reiterated the need to investigate the execution of thousands of Iranian political prisoners in 1988 and to bring the perpetrators, many of whom continue to hold positions of power in the Iranian regime, to account.

At the time, Ruhollah Khomeini, then-Supreme Leader of the Iranian regime, issued a fatwa, in which he ordered all political prisoners affiliated with the PMOI/MEK to be executed unless they repented their support for the Iranian opposition group. Tens of thousands of political prisoners were tried in 15-minute trials and more than 30,000 people were executed in the span of a few months.

The event, which many have described as one of the worst crimes against humanity after the Second World War, has become known as the 1988 massacre. Jurists and human rights defenders have constantly called for an independent probe into the crime and the perpetrators to be brought to justice in international criminal courts.

Former Columbian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who spoke at the conference, recounted the events that led to the executions, stressing that most of the victims were “political prisoners who were condemned and were serving their sentence. Some of them were about to be released.”

Ingrid Betancourt  is a Colombian-French politician, former senator, and anti-corruption activist

But the Iranian regime decided to execute them nonetheless. “Each day, there were hundreds of people executed. Imagine in five months, 30 thousand people were executed,” Betancourt said.

Betancourt also underlined that the regime tried very much to cover its crime by carrying out the sentencing and executions swiftly. “The regime is covering the mass graves and prohibiting the families from speaking about it,” Betancourt said, referring the regime’s continued efforts to prevent the scale of the crime to be brought to light.

Betancourt also emphasized the regime’s continued efforts to terrorize the members of the Iranian opposition, including a recent terrorist attempt against the largest gathering of the Iranian diaspora in France.

“The only chance we have to confront terrorism today is to help democracy get back to Iran,” Betancourt said.

Tahar Boumedra, distinguished jurist, former UN representative in Iraq, and the current head of Justice for the Victims of the 1988 (JVMI) underlined the need for an independent probe into the execution of political prisoners in Iran.

“As far as the United Nations is concerned, they’re still asking the government of Iran to investigate the event. They know they will never investigate,” said Boumedra.

FORMER UN ENVOY TO BAGHDAD

Boumedra also stressed that a recent report by Amnesty International report shows how the Iranian security apparatus is destroying the evidence of the 1988 massacre, especially the mass graves where the victims have been buried.

JVMI, Boumedra’s organization, is also documenting the evidence and facts about the 1988 massacre. “We have documented 70 mass graves with precise locations,” he said, urging diplomats and international organizations to visit the locations.

Boumedra asked the Special Rapporteur of the Human Right Situation in Iran and other human rights personalities and organizations to independently probe the 1988 massacre instead of demanding the Iranian regime to do it. “We want them to actually investigate themselves. We want an international inquiry to look into this,” he said.

Laurence Fehlmann Rielle, a member of the Swiss Federal Parliament, called the 1988 executions “one of the most atrocious crimes that hasn’t been investigated by the international community.”

Laurence Fehlmann Rielle

She also emphasized that some of the perpetrators are still in power in Iran. “The perpetrators of this crime must be tried,” she said.

Spanish lawyer Juan Garcés, former advisor of Chilean President Salvador Allende, highlighted on mullahs’ basis for this massacre and the importance of continuing to gather evidence.

“The 1988 massacre in Iran was a crime and mass murder. They used religious beliefs and treated their opponents as ‘enemies of God’ for executing them,” he explained.

Juan Garcés

“This massacre had a religious element because the victims were killed under the pretext of enmity with God. What can we do in this regard? 30 years have passed. These crimes that have a genocidal nature are usually committed by the state, and naturally, we can’t expect the state to serve justice… We must gather all possible evidence, including those of the victims and the perpetrators. One day, this can all be brought to the attention of an international court of law. Establishing a universal jurisdiction can pursue these cases,” Garcés underscored.

Gilbert Mitterrand, a co-organizer of this event, President of Danielle Mitterand Foundation, calls on the international community to place political observations vis-à-vis the Iranian regime aside and put human rights first.

Gilbert Mitterrand

“How many more such sessions do we need to hold?... We would like to go further, not only the 1988 massacres but also the current situation in Iran, where human rights continue to be trampled. The international community shows that it has other priorities above human rights,” he said.

“Former UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, Asma Jahangir, requested an independent inquiry into the 1988 massacre… The international community has condemned the Iranian regime for trying to erase the traces of this crime… The international community is the ally of the Iranian people. We shouldn’t play the game of the mullahs,” Mitterand concluded.

“That massacre is probably the worst crime in Iran’s modern history,” said Alejo Vidal-Quadras, former Vice-President of European Parliament (1999-2014) and the President of the international committee In Search of Justice (ISJ).

Vidal-Quadras

Vidal-Quadras also reminded that the late Mrs. Asma Jahangir, the former Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in Iran, was very much concerned about justice for the victims and had issued a report on September 2, last year, on the killing of political prisoners in the summer of 1988, most of the members of the main Iranian opposition group, the PMOI.

“Many of the perpetrators who have admitted to their role in this crime, have not been brought to justice,” Vidal-Quadras said, adding that instead, those perpetrators have been rewarded with ministerial positions.

This includes Mostafa Pourmohammadi and Alireza Avaii, the former and current ministers of justice in the cabinet of the Iranian regime’s president Hassan Rouhani.

“To appoint as minister of justice someone who has committed a crime against humanity is a record in evil,” Vidal-Quadras said.

Vidal-Quadras also emphasized that the violation of human rights is a problem that continues under the current regime. “During the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, more than 3,500 people have been executed. His predecessor was not ‘moderate’ but he killed fewer people. The concept of moderation in the Iranian regime is quite original,” he said.

He also reminded the audience that since protests erupted across Iran in late last year, more than 50 people have been killed in the streets and more have died under torture.

“It’s not an exaggeration if we call this regime a killing machine,” Vidal-Quadras said, criticizing European politicians and state for disregarding the Iranian regime’s abysmal human rights record.

“We must remind our European governments that Iran is not a normal government to do business with. It’s a totalitarian theocracy that survives by instigating civil conflict and terror outside their borders,” Vidal-Quadras said. “This is a very unstable and weak regime, and it has no future. We should not count on the mullahs and have illusions about Rouhani and the so-called moderates. The future belongs to democracy.”

Sanobargh Zahedi, lawyer and Chair of the Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) Justice Commission, emphasized on necessary measures by the international community.

Sanobargh Zahedi

“The families of the victims still do not how & why their loved ones die, or where they were buried. This is an ongoing form of psychological torture designed to put fear into people. If anyone asks what happened in 1988 or speaks to U.N. mandate holders, they are persecuted, detained and tortured themselves… The people who have committed these murderous crimes have never been held accountable. They have been promoted by the regime for their actions… Iran still executes the most people per capita in the world. Then NCRI calls on the UN Human Rights Council, the General Assembly, the Special Representative, and all special mandate holders to cooperate. Together we can ensure there is accountability and an end to impunity in Iran. We need an international inquiry because the Iranian regime is never going to investigate itself.”

Iran’s regime vowing strikes “beyond the seas”

Iran Regime Vows Strikes Outside Borders, ‘Beyond the Seas’

The Iranian regime is plotting attacks outside of its own borders and will go the distance of carrying out these measures “beyond the seas,” according to a top military figure. Tehran will seek to conduct attacks on those the mullahs consider their "enemies," said former Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) chief Yahya Rahim Safavi.

Such statements are further highlighting the Iranian regime’s clandestine operations inside mainland United States and throughout Europe, especially after two operatives in Albania and a number of others, including a Vienna-based diplomat, in Germany, Belgium and France have been arrested on terrorism-related charges.

"We warn the enemies of the Islamic Revolution that if they make an aggression against the Islamic Iran, we will chase and punish them not only outside the borders but also beyond the seas," Safavi, a top aide to Iranian regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Monday in Tehran.

The remarks were made just days after the IRGC launched a missile strike in Iraq's Kurdistan region targeting Iranian Kurdish dissident groups. The Iranian regime has vowed further strikes in its western neighbor.

Tehran has claimed responsibility of conducting airstrikes during the weekend.

"The IRGC Aerospace Force's missile unit in cooperation with the IRGC Ground Force's drone unit targeted the headquarters and a meeting of the leaders of a filthy and criminal grouplet and a center for training affiliated terrorists with 7 short-range ground-to-ground missiles yesterday (Saturday)," the IRGC said in a statement provided by state-controlled press.

Safavi's rhetoric also comes after the arrest of two Iranian regime operatives in the United States facing charges of plotting terror attacks against various targets and gathering information about Iranian opposition members. U.S. officials are warning about Iranian regime espionage activities expanding beyond their borders and the mullahs’ regime gaining further capability of conducting terror attacks throughout the Middle East and even across the globe.