The Iranian Supreme Court recently nullified the guilty verdict that had been issued by a lower court in 2017 for Saeed Mortazavi. The former Tehran prosecutor had already served 17 months of his two-year sentence and had been released in September 2019. There was never any indication that he faced further legal consequences inside Iran, despite the fact that his prosecution stemmed from the deaths of three individuals who were viciously tortured within his jurisdiction following the 2009 protests.
There have, however, been various calls for Western authorities to arrest him while traveling outside Iran, if only on account of his also being responsible for the 2003 death by torture of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi. The Supreme Court’s announcement can easily be viewed as an instance of the Iranian regime rebuffing demands for further accountability. Furthermore, by clearing Mortazavi’s record, the court has potentially opened the door for him to resume a role similar to that which allowed him to oversee four high-profile instances of fatal torture and likely many others that have not been so widely reported. There is, in fact, no other credible explanation for the regime to take this step at this time. The reversal of Mortazavi’s conviction serves little practical purpose since his punishment had concluded nearly two years earlier. The value of that decision for Tehran is presumably symbolic, and the international community ought to pay close attention to that symbolism and thereby recognize what it says about the impossibility of domestic reform under Iran’s current regime.
That message was already conveyed in June when it was confirmed that Ebrahim Raisi would be the latest president of the Iranian regime. Raisi is notorious for having played a leading role in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, which claimed over 30,000 victims nationwide. More recently, while serving as judiciary chief following an appointment by the regime’s supreme leader, Raisi also oversaw aspects of one of the regime’s worst crackdowns on dissent since the time of that massacre.
A 2020 report by Amnesty International, titled “Trampling Humanity,” explained that participants in a November 2019 uprising had been systematically tortured over a period of months, at the hands of authorities that answered to Raisi. The National Council of Resistance of Iran also reported that within days of the unrest breaking out, security forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps killed 1,500 people in shooting incidents spread across the country.
Raisi’s crimes and abuses, both historic and recent, led to widespread condemnation of his appointment to the presidency, which unsurprisingly was ignored by Tehran. The day after Iran’s sham presidential election, Amnesty International’s Secretary-General said in a statement: “That Ebrahim Raisi has risen to the presidency instead of being investigated for the crimes against humanity of murder, enforced disappearance, and torture is a grim reminder that impunity reigns supreme in Iran.”
As Head of the Iranian Judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi has presided over a spiralling crackdown on human rights which has seen hundreds of peaceful dissidents, human rights defenders and members of persecuted minority groups arbitrarily detained. https://t.co/Ry0F3vIkql
— Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) June 19, 2021
In a three-day virtual summit on Iranian affairs the following month, NCRI officials reiterated longstanding calls for a formal international inquiry into the 1988 massacre. Political supporters from throughout the Western world joined the NCRI in observing that Raisi’s promotion, as well as the impunity behind it, made such an inquiry even more urgent than it already was. Although Mortazavi is not known to have had a high-level role in the 1988 massacre, the regime’s latest show of support for him is another clear sign that Tehran will continue openly defying global outcry and basic human rights standards unless compelled to do otherwise by the credible threat of significant political and economic consequences.
Unfortunately, the leadership of the European Union and most of its member states have so far declined to present the regime with those threats. Instead, they have largely remained laser-focused on the possible restoration of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, even though Tehran made excessive, unwavering demands at negotiations in Vienna prior to Raisi’s “election,” then seemingly rejected those negotiations altogether as the presidential transition was underway.
That further hardening of the regime’s global posture is one example of the hardline shift that was widely anticipated after it became clear that the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was intent upon engineering Raisi’s victory and consolidating power among key loyalists, many of whom are known human rights violators. Other beneficiaries of that scheme include Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, who was promptly elevated to the head of the judiciary in advance of Raisi’s inauguration. Now, Mortazavi may also be reinstalled to a high-level position, assuming the regime is sufficiently confident that he can help the heads of the judiciary and the executive branch to facilitate the sorts of crackdowns that are most likely looming.
Khamenei’s scheme underscores the fact that the regime has no alternative to violent repression when it comes to putting a lid on the domestic dissent that has been increasing in recent years. The November 2019 uprising was the second of its kind in less than two years, and even following the deaths of 1,500 participants, the Iranian people demonstrated remarkable resilience by coming back into the streets in vast numbers in January 2020, to protest the attempted cover-up of a missile strike that brought down a commercial airliner, and to once again call for “death to the dictator.”
Although unrest remained relatively subdued during the first several months of the coronavirus pandemic, NCRI President-elect Mrs. Maryam Rajavi pointed to clashes between civilians and security forces in Sistan and Baluchistan Province to suggest that the “fire of the uprisings” was rising again in early 2021. This sentiment was reinforced in the run-up to the presidential election, at which time MEK activists promoted a boycott of the polls as a means to “vote for regime change.” Even according to Tehran’s own official estimates, the majority of the Iranian people declined to participate in that election, and the NCRI reports that the actual turnout was less than ten percent.
Since Raisi took office, public protests have been expanding in terms of both their geography and their messaging. Whereas a number of those protests have been focused on specific issues such as blackouts and water shortages, they have increasingly come to feature the sorts of anti-government slogans that defined the January 2018 and November 2019 uprisings, including the simple declaration, “We do not want this regime.”
If the European Union remains intent on restoring the nuclear deal and preserving the status quo with respect to Tehran, it will most likely be turning a blind eye to these civilian demands for freedom and democracy, as well as the repressive response that is certain to emanate from Tehran. With Mortazavi’s acquittal, it is now more apparent than ever that human rights abusers will never face serious consequences inside Iran. Thus, there is nothing to dissuade Iranian officials or security forces from killing anti-government protesters in the streets, or torturing them in the regime’s jails, or executing them in the wake of unfair trials, unless it is clear that they could face financial and legal consequences at the hands of foreign powers, including prosecution at the International Criminal Court.
