Free Republic

DUBAI, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday the United States' "military failure" in Afghanistan offered an opportunity to establish lasting peace in the country. Taliban insurgents took control of the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday following a rout of the U.S.-backed Afghan army as foreign forces withdrew from Afghanistan. Washington has accused Iran in the past of providing covert aid to Taliban fighters against U.S. forces. Tehran, which supports an inclusive Afghan government that would include all ethnic groups and sects, has denied this. "America's military defeat and its withdrawal must become an opportunity to...

On Wednesday, August 11, Ebrahim Raisi, the new president of Iran, introduced the names of his cabinet ministers to Iran's parliament. A brief look at the proposed ministers clearly shows that, as expected, with these ministers and their boss, Raisi, no serious changes will occur in the management or, better say, in the country's mismanagement. Most of Raisi's proposed ministers held ministerial positions in Ahmadinejad's cabinet, and there is almost no new face among them. Looking at the titles of each of these proposed ministers, it can be seen that a significant number of them carry the title "doctor…", Doctor...

Last week, Ebrahim Raisi officially took over the government of Iran. With blood still dripping from his hands from the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, he is recognized ‎as the most hated president in Iran. Unfortunately, Western countries have turned a ‎blind eye to the crimes committed by Raisi, and the European Union has sent Enrique ‎Mora, its deputy secretary-general of the External Action Service to Tehran as the EU ‎representative for the inauguration ceremony. ‎ Amnesty International issued a statement protesting the dispatching of an EU envoy to ‎attend the inauguration of Ebrahim Raisi. On June 19, 2021, the...

Team Obama-Biden's decision to brand its 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the so-called "Iran nuclear deal," as comprehensive was White House disinformation of the vilest sort: a blatant lie told to deceive the American people. President Barack Obama's JCPOA was anything but comprehensive. It had weak nuclear inspection requirements and enforcement mechanisms, which Iran easily skirted. Documents that Israeli intelligence acquired in 2018 confirmed Tehran routinely violated the JCPOA. The plan of action? Inaction in the face of Tehran's calculated violence is more apt. Team Obama-Biden failed to penalize the Iranian regime's covert and overt violent troublemaking, a grievous...

Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline judge who is under U.S. sanctions for human rights abuses, secured victory as expected on Saturday in Iran’s presidential election after a contest marked by voter apathy over economic hardships and political restrictions... Turnout in Friday's four-man race was a record low of around 48.8% and there were 3.7 million invalid ballots that were likely to have been mostly blank or protest votes. Appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the high-profile job of judiciary chief in 2019, Raisi was placed under U.S. sanctions a few months later over human rights violations. Those included the...

And one candidate in particular is leading: Ebrahim Raisi, the current judiciary chief, appointed by Mr. Khamenei, who has a long history of involvement in human rights abuses, and who lost in 2017 in a surprise victory by the outgoing president, Hassan Rouhani. With no credible challenger, Mr. Raisi is expected to win this time. Any serious competition has been winnowed from the race. Even some members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, known for their strong hostility to any political dissent, described the election as anti-democratic.

While there is not much time left until June 18, the day of the presidential elections in Iran, the war between the two factions within the regime for winning this seat has escalated. On April 25, a letter signed by 220 members of the Iranian parliament was published in the media. The MPs asked Ebrahim Ra'isi, the head of the regime's judiciary, to run for the presidency. The letter was published contrary to the usual custom of non-interference of the legislature in the affairs of the executive branch. Ra'isi's endorsement is also interpreted as an attack against the current president,...

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani traveled to the city of Yazd on Sunday to deliver a speech about Iran’s economy, the oil sector and to express sympathy with earthquake victims. He also revealed massive allegations of corruption. In a rare rebuke, the president attacked the oil minister and demanded to know where $700 million in funds have gone, and slammed the judiciary and the Central Bank over a separate $2 billion corruption case. Rouhani began his speech with good news, arguing that since April, the economy of Iran has stabilized, despite difficult pressures from abroad – a reference to the US...

Sotoudeh has represented opposition activists and women who removed mandatory headscarf. Nasrin Sotoudeh, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer jailed in Iran, was handed a new sentence on Monday which her husband said was 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. Sotoudeh, who has represented opposition activists including women prosecuted for removing their mandatory headscarf, was arrested in June and charged with spying, spreading propaganda and insulting Iran's supreme leader, her lawyer said. She also was jailed in 2010 for spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security — charges she denied ... The news comes days after Iran appointed...

The appointment of Cleric Ebrahim Raisi as head of the Iranian judiciary on Thursday was met with wide-ranging international condemnation. Statements from groups such as Amnesty International have highlighted Raisi’s record as one of the most brutal figures in the modern history of Iranian jurisprudence, owing especially to his leading role in the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in the summer of 1988.The National Council of Resistance of Iran echoed this criticism. It has sought over the years to bring broader international attention to the massacre. This is to be expected, since the NCRI’s main constituent group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran...