Free Republic

The trial in Sweden of Hamid Noury, an agent of the Iranian regime, ended on May 5th. The prosecutor told the court that there was plenty of evidence to show that Hamid Noury committed the crimes he had been charged with and she asked for him to be sentenced to life imprisonment. The verdict is expected later. The court case in Stockholm has been a direct embarrassment to Iran’s executioner president, Ebrahim Raisi, dubbed ‘The Butcher of Tehran’ for his hands-on role in the killing of thousands of political prisoners, including teenagers and even pregnant women, during a notorious massacre...

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Saudi Arabia on Saturday for a summit on Gaza, state-affiliated media reported, his first visit since the two countries agreed to restore ties in March. Footage aired on the Al-Ekhbariya channel showed Raisi, wearing a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, greeting Saudi officials at the airport after disembarking from his plane. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Saudi Arabia on Saturday for a summit on Gaza, state-affiliated media reported, his first visit since the two countries agreed to restore ties in March. Footage aired on the Al-Ekhbariya channel showed Raisi, wearing a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh...

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi posted said Israel has now crossed the red line as Israeli forces ground deeper into Gaza on Sunday. Raisi said in a post on X: “Zionist regime’s crimes have crossed the red lines, which may force everyone to take action. Washington asks us to not do anything, but they keep giving widespread support to Israel.’ “The US sent messages to the Axis of Resistance but received a clear response on the battlefield,” Raisi said, referring to Iran-backed groups that are opposed to Israel and the US. According to a recent statement from Iran’s Tasnim News Agency,...

At first glance, Thursday’s first-ever phone call between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi might suggest the two predominantly Muslim nations are coming together to support Hamas and its war on Israel. But a closer look shows the two leaders were talking past each other. The Saudi prince, known as MBS, wants peace with Israel and his country’s full integration into the world economy, an agenda that puts him fundamentally at odds with Tehran’s drive to destroy Israel and dominate the Middle East through a network of clients and proxies. According to the Saudi readout...

President Ebrahim Raisi said on Sunday that Iran supports the Palestinians' right to self-defence and warned Israel must be held accountable for endangering the region, a day after Hamas attacked Israel. “Iran supports the legitimate defence of the Palestinian nation," Raisi said, quoted by state television. "The Zionist regime (Israel) and its supporters are responsible for endangering the security of nations in the region, and they must be held accountable in this matter." He urged Muslim governments to "support the Palestinian nation" while praising "resistance" efforts by Hamas and Islamic Jihad as well as in countries including Syria, Lebanon, and...

Israel’s ambassador, Gilad Erdan, shamed us all; if we want to retain any respect for ourselves, we now need to follow his example. The appearance of Ebrahim Raisi, the Butcher of Tehran, at the United Nations underscores even further, if such is possible, the UN’s complete lack of legitimacy as any kind of international organization. “Raisi was a member of Tehran’s ‘Death Commission,’ which oversaw the 1988 massacre” in which thirty thousand people were murdered. He is no better than the Nazis who were hanged after the Nuremberg trials, and hopefully his own people will someday give him the Pierrepoint...

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations was briefly detained by security on Tuesday for protesting during the Iranian president's speech. Gilad Erdan held up a photo of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian woman who was killed while in the custody of Tehran's morality police after being arrested for not covering enough of her hair. Erdan walked silently towards the stage, holding the sign above his head. On it was written: 'Iranian women deserve freedom now!' Ebrahim Raisi, the president of Iran, did not appear to notice Erdan, who then left the chamber and was later held by UN security. Erdan...

Joy Behar told her co-hosts Friday on ABC’s “The View” that they should be “standing in solidarity in this country for men trying to control us with their abortion laws” while discussing the demonstrations in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini. Amini was allegedly beaten by police and died last week over her hijab. During a discussion on the protest and CNN’s Christiane Amanpour refusing to wear a headscarf for her scheduled interview with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, co-host Ana Navarro said, “Christiane Amanpour is an inspiration to me, to women around the world. There was a time when...

President Joe Biden hasn’t blocked Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi from entering the U.S. to speak at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting in New York City next month. Raisi will attend even after an Iranian military officer was charged this month with trying to assassinate former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. For weeks, Senate Republicans have been calling for President Joe Biden to block Raisi, who the U.S. sanctioned in 2019 for his role in executing children in 2018 and 2019. Earlier this month, The Department of Justice charged an Iranian military officer with trying to hire people...

Angry protesters hit the streets of Iran on Friday after a two-year pause driven by the coronavirus pandemic. They demanded the immediate destruction of Israel, the U.S. and the UK along with anyone who even dares to speak favorably of the Jewish state. Paramilitary Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Hossein Salami personally promised “painful” responses against anyone who stood in the Islamic republic’s way. “Stop your vicious deeds. You know well that we are people of action and reaction,” Salami told marchers in Tehran as he railed against Israel and its supporters. Demonstrators chanted the “death to Israel,” and “death to...

Iran is looking to strengthen ties with China in hopes of countering the U.S., as discussions over a new Iran nuclear deal remain unfruitful. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi welcomed Chinese Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe and the two men agreed on the strategic benefit of their alliance, Iranian state media reported according to The Associated Press. Wei said the purpose of the the trip was "improving the strategic defense cooperation" between Iran and China...

Ever since the international community aimed to punish the Iranian regime for its illicit nuclear activities and its support of global terrorism and regional warmongering, Tehran has tried to find ways to sidestep the sanctions regime through money laundering, smuggling and hostage taking. In March 2021, in his new year’s address and three months before installing Ebrahim Raisi as the new president, the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave instructions about how to steer the regime away from being vulnerable to sanctions. “Our emphatic advice to the officials of our country, whether those who are now in office or...

Primo Levi, a Holocaust survivor of Italian origin who led a distinguished life, was at the Auschwitz concentration camp hospital one day due to high fever caused by an infectious disease. He later wrote in his memoirs that when confronted with Soviet soldiers: "They neither greeted nor smiled; they seemed to be tormented by the guilt of why this crime had to happen." The trial of one of the perpetrators of another heinous crime, the massacre of 30,000 Iranian political prisoners in 1988, is currently taking place in a Swedish court. What happened in 1988 was a ruthless, bloody, and...

Last week, Israel’s Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett described the Iranian regime as an octopus that for decades had encircled Israel with its tentacles in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, and Yemen. He announced that Israel was now going to change its policy and instead of struggling against the tentacles, it will strike at the head of the octopus in Tehran. Prime Minister Bennet was referring to the theocratic regime’s military and financial sponsorship of Bashar al-Assad’s bloody civil war in Syria, now in its 11th year, and the mullahs backing for the Houthi rebels in Yemen, the terrorist Hezbollah in Lebanon...

On January 5, a giant statue of Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian regime's dead terrorist mastermind, was displayed in the city of Shahr-e Kord. The regime unveiled the statue with much noise and fanfare just ahead of the second anniversary of Soleimani's elimination in a US drone strike in 2020. Mere hours later, the statue was engulfed in flames by dissidents, dealing a major blow against state propaganda to bill the former commander of the terrorist Qods Force as a "hero." Just a couple of days prior, the regime’s President Ebrahim Raisi delivered a televised speech in which he promised revenge...

Before resident Biden proceeds any further with his desire to resurrect the failed Nuclear Weapons Deal Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), he needs to read two recently released documents: State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism Annual Report and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s draft budget for 2022-2023. Each document is a validation of the other. The Bureau of Counterterrorism Report identifies Iran as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism,” a designation first rendered in 1984. The report specifically mentions: “Tehran’s support for Hizballah, Palestinian terrorism groups in Gaza, and various terrorist and militant groups in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere throughout the Middle...

On Thursday, October 28, supporters of the People's Mujahidin ‎Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and the National Council of ‎Resistance of Iran (NCRI) held a large conference in Washington ‎DC. The conference, titled, "2021 Free Iran Summit: Holding ‎Ebrahim Raisi Accountable for Crimes Against Humanity, ‎Genocide, Regional Meddling, and Nuclear Defiance," ‎ This conference, however, was significantly different from similar ‎meetings that were previously held in the United States. In this ‎ever-important gathering, in addition to distinguished American ‎personalities such as Senator Joe Lieberman, US Vice President ‎candidate (2000), Senator Torricelli, U.S. Senator (1997-2003), ‎Honorable Judge Michael Mukasey, 81st U.S. Attorney...

During a rendezvous at the United Nations General Assembly, the Iranian regime's foreign minister lodged a formal complaint with his Swedish counterpart about the trial of Hamid Noury, a former Iranian official, in Stockholm. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told Sweden's Ann Linde that all the documents provided to the court are "fabricated." A month prior, a spokesman for the regime's Foreign Ministry had warned, "We will naturally use all our diplomatic means to obtain and enforce Hamid Noury's rights." Who is Hamid Noury, and why is the regime clearly terrified of his trial in Sweden? Hamid Noury was a low-ranking official in...

For the first time ever, significant light is being shed on one of the most horrendous human rights atrocities of the second half of the 20th century. In 1988, more than 30,000 political prisoners were senselessly massacred by Iranian officials. More than 30 years later, one of the people who participated in the massacre, Hamid Noury, is on trial in Sweden. The Noury trial should spark more media and public scrutiny about the 1988 massacre, and ultimately trigger a long overdue international investigation. Hamid Noury has been incarcerated in Sweden since November 2019 when he visited the country for personal...

The Iranian regime is not only covering up its nuclear weapons ambitions. For more than three decades, the extremist theocracy has tried to cover up one of its greatest crimes against humanity. In 1988, in what became known as the 1988 massacre, Tehran began the systematic killing of thousands of dissidents and opposition activists. Ultimately, an estimated 30,000 people lost their lives in the brutal massacre. But a court in Sweden is now ending the regime's cover-up. In November 2019, Swedish authorities arrested a man, Hamid Noury, believed to have been involved in the 1988 massacre. On July 27, 2021,...