EU Sends High-Level Representative to Swearing-In of Raisi

by Hugh Fitzgerald

 

The newly-elected president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, is infamous in his country as a murderer, responsible as a prosecutor for the deaths of 30,000 political prisoners in the 1980s, and since then, as a hanging judge, for thousands more. He has always been unrepentant:

“From the beginning of my position as a jurist, I have always defended the people’s human rights. Human rights has always been the focal point of all my responsibilities.”

“Those who make accusations, it should be said that today we are the accusers as defenders of human rights. All the measures I took during my posts were always in defense of human rights against those who disrupted the rights of humans.”

He added that “I should be commended” for defending the rights of the people.

“If a legal expert, judge or prosecutor has defended the rights of people and the security of the society, he must be lauded and encouraged,” he said.

In an utter shameless statement, he claimed, “I am proud that as a prosecutor, wherever I was, I defended the rights, the security and the well-being of the people.”

A moral monster, forsooth, who earned his sobriquet “the Butcher of Tehran.” No wonder he was Khamenei’s favored candidate, as unrepentantly hardline as the Supreme Leader himself. Representatives of the nearly two million Iranians in exile have urged a boycott of the swearing-in of Raisi. Unforunately, many nations and organizations have chosen to ignore their insistent request.

Particularly infuriating has been the decision of the European Union, which sees itself as a stout defender of human rights, to send a senior representative to attend Raisi’s swearing-in. The European Union is an international scold, particularly when it comes to what it sees as Israel’s many sins, but apparently the Islamic Republic, in the eyes of the E.U., deserves only respect..

More on this story is here: “Israeli Foreign Ministry: EU sending representative to Raisi’s swearing-in ‘puzzling,’” by Dean Shmuel Elmas, Israel Hayom, August 3, 2021:

Israel is less than enthusiastic about the European Union’s decision to send a high-level representative to attend the swearing-in of Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi on Thursday.

On Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Hayat tweeted: “The decision of the European Union to send a senior representative to the swearing-in ceremony of the ‘Butcher of Tehran’ is puzzling and shows poor judgment.”

Hayat said that EU Deputy Secretary General Enrique Mora would be attending the ceremony just a “few days after Iran killed two civilians,” in “an act of state terrorism against civilian shipping,” referring to a drone attack on an Israeli-managed ship off the coast of Oman last week, in which one British and one Romanian citizen were killed. Iran has denied responsibility for the attack, although the United States and the United Kingdom both pin the blame on Tehran.

And since that Iranian attack on the MV Mercer Street, the crews on six ships in the Gulf of Oman have reportedly lost “command” of their vessels; that is they can no longer steer them. Iran is suspected of being responsible for what sounds like a cyberattack. And the Iranians are also believed to have just hijacked the Asphalt Princess, a cargo vessel owned by an Emirati company. This is hardly the time, when it is creating havoc in the Gulf, to placate the Islamic Republic.

According to Hayat, Raisi “has the blood of thousands of Iranian citizens on his hands,” and the presence of an EU representative will lend legitimacy to his presidency.

Earlier on Monday, a spokesman for the Iranian parliament reported that 115 senior officials from 73 countries would be attending the swearing-in ceremony.

Ten presidents, 20 parliament speakers, 11 foreign ministers, 10 other ministers, as well as representatives of presidents, vice presidents, and parliamentary delegations will all come,” the spokesperson said, adding that another 11 leaders of international and regional organizations, including the United Nations, OPEC and the European Union would also be in attendance.

All these representatives in attendance only help to legitimize Raisi, as if he were a reputable leader in a reputable country, and not a murderer assuming the presidency of a sinister despotism.

The American government, one assumes, will not be sending anyone to the Tehran ceremonies. It’s too late to convince others who are intent on going to change their minds. But Washington can do a good deal after the fact. It can organize the decent nations of the world, including some that are members of the E.U. and deplored that organization’s decision to send Deputy Secretary General Enrique Mora to Tehran, to issue a collective denunciation of Raisi. This would make clear both to Iranian dissidents in exile abroad, and to the long-suffering Iranian dissidents within the country, who have again begun to mobilize on the streets of Iran’s cities and to shout those words that terrify the Supreme Leader — “Death to Khamenei” — that we hear them, we support them, and we will not abandon them as Obama so shamefully did with Iran’s Green Revolution marchers in 2009.

First published in Jihad Watch.

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