#Ruhollah Khomeini

[why-i-love-comics]

Batman #428: Robin Lives (2023)

written by Jim Starlin art by Jim Aparo, Mike Decarlo, John Costanza, & Adrienne Roy

[humusboii2thereturnoftheking]

Forty-five years of the illegal regime of the Islamic Republic in a single video

This is the face of Iran, the one puppeteering numerous Islamic terror organizations, among which are Hamas and Hezbollah.

The same crowd cheering as Iran and its proxies launched over 300 drones, ICBM missiles and Cruise missiles on Israel is the one calling for a ceasefire and condemning Israel for its actions. The hypocrisy is not lost on the rest of us.

Iranians deserve so much better than pasty westerners supporting the persecution they've endured & survived for decades.

Video by officialrezapahlavi.

[nodynasty4us]

From the October 3, 2023 article, referring to events in 1983:

,,, the official news agency IRNA’s 5-part interview with Tabatabai, the representative of Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Lebanon, who held the same job in the service of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In the interview, Tabatabai described his role, on instructions by Khomeini, in suicide operations against American agents and the US military contingency, as well as Israeli forces in Lebanon.

In the interview, translated by MEMRI, Tabatabai describes receiving Khomeini’s fatwa ordering attacks on American and Israeli targets in Lebanon. The interview was removed by IRNA from its website shortly after it had been posted, conceivably because it included the first statement by a high-ranking Iranian official of the Islamic Republic’s role in those attacks, which included the April 1983 attack on the US Embassy in Beirut in which 63 people, including 17 Americans; and the attack on the barracks in Tyre of the American and French Multinational Force in October 1983, in which 241 US service personnel, including 220 Marines, and 58 French soldiers were killed.

(Via Ground News.)

[transparentgentlemenmarker]

Astonishing scenes from Iran. Protesters have burned down the house of Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic’s founder. The house has been a museum for the past 30 years. This is an attack in the essence of the republic itself.

Iran la villa de l'ayatollah Khomeini en feu 17 novembre 2022

[mossadegh]

For over four decades, the Iranian people have suffered under the unrelenting death grip of the despotic, treacherous Islamic regime. Yet never before has the potential for liberation seemed as viable as it does now.

The Mossadegh Project

[underthewingsofthblackeagle]

26 dead, 12.500 arrested: Why Iran's regime still can't stifle the protests

          Iranians have been in the streets for two months in protests led by women united by the protest slogan, "Freedom, women, life." The initial catalyst for the movement was the September 16 death of a student, Jina Mahsa Amini, at the hands of morality police ostensibly offended by her ill-fitted hijab. The protest movement represents the biggest threat the regime has faced since seizing power in 1979. Initially fueled by the strict rules of the clerics as it concerns women's dress, the protests have morphed into something much bigger that potentially could threaten the country's religious rulers and their grasp on power.             The ancestral home of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that has functioned as a museum to the late Supreme Leader was set on fire by anti-regime protesters who continued their nearly two months of defiance against the hardline rule of Iran's theocratic rulers. Videos posted to social media showed the house in Khomein in the western province of Markazi on fire as crowds marched past and cheered. Iranian state news agency Tasnim denied the late cleric's showpiece home was on fire. Tasnim claimed "the report is a lie." The Iranian outlet added that "the doors of the house of the late founder of the great revolution are open to the public." By contrast, both AFP and Reuters have verified the location. Reuters reported the activist network 1500Tasvir said the incident occurred Thursday night. Khomeini was born in the home in the town at the turn of the last century. His surname is taken from the town's name. The house became a museum to commemorate the cleric who became known as the country's Supreme Leader. It is unclear what damage there may be to the site.

[dragoneyes618]

"Moral non-Jews who fail to counter antisemites often suffer because of them. For example, during the 1930s, American isolationists regarded Nazi antisemitism as an unpleasant feature of a country that was otherwise highly civilized. Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, they refused to see Hitler and the Nazis as dangerously evil, and urged Americans not to fight them. Indeed, the leading isolationist, Charles Lindbergh, warned American Jews against fomenting anti-Nazi feelings in the United States. But had Hitler been confronted earlier - when his evil was primarily expressed through his antisemitism - not only would six million Jewish lives have been saved, so too would fifty million non-Jewish ones.

During the 1970s, the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin sent a message to the United Nations announcing his admiration for Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution." At the time, only Jews and the American ambassador the U.N. protested. Fortunately, Amin was in no position to carry out his evil designs against the Jews. But several hundred thousand Ugandan Christians whom Amin later butchered suffered from his evil nature, which should have been universally apparent from his antisemitic utterances.

When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini assumed power in Iran, his first act was to occupy the Israeli embassy in Teheran, which he immediately turned over to the PLO. The world dismissed this as the Jews' problem, until the Iranians took over the American embassy less than a year later, and held over a hundred people hostage.

Finally, widespread hatred of Israel in the Arab world is often dismissed mainly or entirely as a Jewish problem, one that reveals little about the Arab or Islamic states. But clearly, the Arab world's hatred for Jewish nationhood is not an unrepresentative quirk of otherwise tolerant lovers of democracy. Rather, it is a quite precise moral indicator, as evidenced by the Christians of Lebanon, who have suffered far worse from Muslim hatred than have Israel's Jews. As Dennis Prager and I have written, "There is often a direct correlation between the ferocity of a Muslim leader's hatred of the Jewish state, and his hatred of democracy and other Western values. Iran's Khomeini, Libya's Qaddafi and Iraw's Hussein are three such examples. Conversely, Arab and other Middle Eastern Muslim societies that are less characterized by despotism and wanton cruelty, such as Tunisia and Turkey, are also characterized by a greater tolerance of the Jews" (Why the Jews?, pages 197-198)."

- Jewish Wisdom, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, pages 462-463

[tamamita]

What the hell was up with Ruhollah Khomeini? Among other things, he seemed like a miserable person who hated fun.

[deadpresidents]

Hi! I'm a longtime reader and am trying to find something you posted years ago about Saddam and Dubya and the real "cause" of the iraq war to show my friend. Are you able to help me find the link to it? THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

Thanks for sticking around for all these years!

I'm guessing this is the post you were talking about. It's one of those posts that gets requested every couple of years:

Anonymous asked: Why did Bush start the Iraq War?

It all started in the spring of 1986 when George W. Bush was sent to Iraq as a secret emissary on behalf of the Reagan Administration.  Despite his lack of experience in…well…anything, President Reagan sent Bush because Bush’s father, Vice President George H.W. Bush, said he could be trusted.

The Iran-Iraq War was at a stalemate and the younger Bush went to Iraq in order to offer assistance to the Iraqis in their cause.  The United States had a vested interest in the deposition of Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and senior aides in the Reagan Administration, as well as top American intelligence officials, believed that strengthening Iraq would lead to an Iranian defeat and that an Iranian defeat would result in the end of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.  That would bring about the fall of Ayatollah Khomeini.

George W. Bush, just 39 years old at the time, arrived in Baghdad in secret and was whisked away by helicopter to one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces, on the Euphrates River in Najaf.  It was there that the eventual adversaries would first meet, but at the time, they really enjoyed each other’s company.  For hours, they joked, watched local performers, spoke to one another about their hopes and dreams, and then gathered for dinner.

During that dinner, the seeds were planted for a conflict that later would cost thousands of American and Iraqi lives.  Saddam and Bush feasted on quail that Saddam claimed he had personally hunted earlier that day.  Bush, remembering his diplomatic initiative, asked Saddam what the United States and President Reagan could do to help Iraq defeat the Iranians and topple Ayatollah Khomeini.  Saddam laid out what he would need, and Bush assured the Iraqi leader that his requests would be no problem and that he was glad that they could come to an agreement.

Unfortunately, both men began drinking during the dinner, and both men became boisterous.  Good-natured joking was transforming into sharp jabs and then downright hostility.  Saddam and Bush were joined by a very small group of people, and the entire room went silent as the Iraqi dictator and the future American President started boasting about their manhood and making challenges to the other man.

Saddam found himself in an unusual position as Bush would not defer to him in these challenges.  When Saddam dropped and did 50 push-ups, Bush did the same.  When Saddam swam across the Euphrates and back, Bush did, as well.  They had a foot race around the palace with no clear winner.  Arm-wrestling settled nothing.  They competed to see who could kick a soccer ball the furthest and, again, there was no distinction between the two.  Saddam skipped a rock across the river six times, and so did Bush. 

Saddam was getting more-and-more frustrated by his inability to best George W. Bush in feats of strength, athletic contests, or the board game “Sorry!”.  If an Iraqi had met all of Saddam’s challenges as Bush had without deferring to the Iraqi dictator, Saddam would have had his son Uday torture the man.  Of course, he couldn’t do that with the son of the Vice President of the United States, especially since he had been sent as a special emissary by President Reagan.

Suddenly, an idea brightened Saddam’s countenance.  He summoned an aide and whispered something in the man’s ear.  Five minutes later, Saddam’s aide walked in with a large boombox and an Iraqi soldier brought in several pieces of cardboard.

Saddam stood up, loosened his tie, removed his military-style beret, and rolled up his sleeves.  Staring at George W. Bush with fire in his eyes, the Iraqi dictator growled, “Let’s see your B-boy stance, Texas.”

Bush quickly stood up, ready for the challenge, removed his jacket, and rolled up his shirtsleeves, as well.  Removing his shoes, Bush gestured to Saddam, “It’s your country…for now…so, why don’t you go first?”.

Although he was fuming and visibly shaken by Bush’s confidence, Saddam closed his eyes, took three deep breaths, and pointed at the Iraqi near the boombox.  Immediately, Run-D.M.C.’s self-titled album began playing and – there’s really no other way to put this: Saddam Hussein got the fuck down.  The Iraqi dictator was popping, locking, busting out power moves and pulling up with world-class freezes.

Bush was obviously overmatched.  The confidence was gone.  The liquid courage from the night’s alcohol was abandoning him.  As “Rock Box” played, Bush discovered that he couldn’t match Saddam Hussein in everything.  Had it ended there, with Saddam smiling and shaking hands with the future President after Bush graciously admitted defeat, perhaps the world would be different today.

Saddam, however, had been humiliated earlier in the night.  Instead of smiling and shaking Bush’s hand, he pointed once again to the boombox.  Saddam stared hard at Bush, did the Crip Walk and then transformed that into a Moonwalk.  Saddam Moonwalked right out of the room, continuing to stare Bush directly in the eyes, and saying, as he reached the doorway, “Show yourself out, motherfucker.”

When George W. Bush returned to the United States, he immediately gave up drinking alcohol and focused himself on his life and future.  He swore to himself that he would one day gain revenge against Saddam Hussein’s disrespectful showing during their b-boy battle in Iraq.  Everything Bush did from 1986 on was done with the single purpose of destroying Saddam Hussein.  Owner of a baseball team, Governor of Teas, President of the United States – none of these things meant much if Saddam Hussein was still gloating about his victory.

People talk about the oil or the revenge for slights against George W. Bush’s father or a search for weapons of mass destruction, but you now know the truth.  George W. Bush went to war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein ambushed and embarrassed him during their breakdancing battle in 1986.  There was never blood for oil; the blood was for breakdancing.

[dc-polls]

"That Really Happened?!" DC Comics Tournament Entry #17

Joker Becomes Iranian Ambassador to the UN

[ID: Three comic panels, where the first shows Ayatollah Khomeini saying, "I have a position in my government I wish to offer you, monsieur Joker. In the next two panels Joker, who is wearing a head dress, says, "It is a great honor for me to be here tonight. I am proud to speak for the great Islamic Republic of Iran." /END ID]

What Happened?

In a spectacular "wow would their lawyers not let them run that today" turn, DC shows the actual Grand Ayatollah Khomeini engaging the Joker to blow up the UN by naming him the new Iranian Ambassador.

More info...

Just days after he killed Jason Todd, AKA Robin, the Joker was personally approached by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini with a job offer to become Iran's ambassador to the United Nations. Why he thought this would be a good idea is anyone's guess. Joker accepted, using the diplomatic immunity that came with the job to escape Batman's vengeance and launch a scheme to destroy the UN, which was thwarted by Batman and Superman.

--

Tournament polls will be posted after all entries are up. As always you can find all posts related to the tournament using #dc-polls-trh

[thepeacepigeon]

“Woman, life, freedom.” How the women of Iran protest the hijab

(Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters)

In September 2022, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested by morality police in Tehran, Iran, for refusing to wear a hijab. Hijabs have been mandatory in Iran for women since the revolution in 1979, when the Imperial State of Iran was replaced with the Islamic Republic. Only a month after the victory of the revolution, Iran's new head of state, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, declared: “Sin is not allowed in Islamic Cabinet ministries. Women should not appear naked in the ministries. Women are allowed only with a hijab. There is no obstacle to them working but only if they wear the hijab as prescribed by Islamic law.”

(Aristotle Saris/AP Photo)

The following day, over 15,000 Iranian women celebrated International Women’s Day, gathering in front of the prime minister’s office in Tehran in protest against the mandatory hijab. As of 1983, Parliament has since passed the Islamic Penal Code, which establishes a punishment of “up to 74 lashes for women appearing without Islamic hijab in public.” In 1996, the law was revised and replaced with “physical punishment with incarceration and fines.” 

In the case of Mahsa Amini, her suspicious death in police custody sparked massive outrage across the country, prompting widespread and large-scale protests. Videos were posted and spread online of Iranian women cutting their hair and burning their hijabs, which served as a powerful way to both protest the morality police responsible for Amini’s death and reject the policy of compulsory hijab. Iranians— both men and women, peacefully protested in the streets of Tehran, and in big and small towns across the country, chanting, “Woman, life, freedom.” 

(Safin Hamed/AFP/GI)

While many of these protests have been shut down or lost traction and attention outside of Iran, political activism in the name of women's equality and freedom continues to thrive in different forms. Widely recognized imprisoned female activists continue to leak statements and voice recordings online, describing and criticizing their living conditions in prison and encouraging other activists to keep working. Discussions and online meetings continue to be held in private online forums such as Twitter, Telegram, and WhatsApp. The women of Iran continue to engage in quiet civil disobedience regardless of the risks or consequences.

In 2017, five years before Mahsa Amini's death, a young woman named Vida Movahed climbed and stood on top of a utility box on one of Tehran's busiest streets. She stood, bareheaded—calmly waving her white scarf on a long stick. Her peaceful yet powerful display of defiance went viral, and photos soon circulated of other Iranian women taking off their headscarves in public. These acts of resistance contrast the violent treatment women like Mahsa Amini face at the hands of the Iranian government and police. They serve as an important example and reminder of the power the people can hold. 

Kenyon, Peter. “Public Protests Are over but More Iranian Women Are Refusing to Wear the Hijab.” NPR, NPR, 20 June 2023, www.npr.org/2023/06/20/1183152677/public-protests-are-over-but-more-iranian-women-are-refusing-to-wear-the-hijab.

Bazoobandi, Sara, et al. “Hijab in Iran: From Religious to Political Symbol.” Carnegie Endowment, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 13 Oct. 2022, carnegieendowment.org/sada/88152. 

Alfoneh, Ali, et al. “The End of Mandatory Hijab in Iran?” Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, 28 Feb. 2024, agsiw.org/the-end-of-mandatory-hijab-in-iran/. 

Tajali, Mona. “Women’s Activism in Iran Continues, despite Street Protests Dying down in Face of State Repression.” The Conversation, 16 Nov. 2023, theconversation.com/womens-activism-in-iran-continues-despite-street-protests-dying-down-in-face-of-state-repression-213514. 

Radio, CBC. “Peace Movement: The Impact of Grassroots Activism, Policy, and Culture.” Gray Group International, Gray Group International LLC, 5 Oct. 2022, www.graygroupintl.com/blog/peace-movement.

[nakibistan]

List of notable Muslim allies of queer, trans or LGBTQI+ folks

Imam al-Nawawi – ally of Mukhannathun or trans femmes, female transsexuals and effeminate queers

Saint Khawaja Gharib Nawaz – ally and patron of Hijra and Khawaja Sara communities

Saint Baba Bulleh Shah – ally and patron of Muslim Khawaja Sira communities

Saint Lal Shabaz Qalander – patron of Khawaja Sira & trans Muslim communities

Abu Muhammad Ali Ibn Hazm – ally of queer Muslims

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - ally of transgender & intersex folks

Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi - ally of trans & intersex folks

Amina Wadud - ally of LGBTQI+ Muslims, founder of Queer Islamic Studies and Theology (QIST)

Gulbanu Khaki/Gul Khaki - ally of LGBTQ+ muslims, mother of a gay imam

Khaled Hosseini - ally of transgender & proud muslim dad of a transgender child

Siddika Jessa - LGBTQI+ activist, mother of a gay muslim son

Ani Zonneveld

Pamela Taylor

Laura Silver

Omid Safi

Kecia Ali

Ghazala Anwar

Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur

Farid Esack

Zaitun Mohamed Kasim/Toni Mohamed Kasim

Anne-Sophie Monsinay

Imam Kahina Bahloul

Imam Philip Tuley

Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle

Farouk Peru

Abdennur Prado

Ingrid Mattson

Hasan Minhaj

Reza Aslan

Alia Bano

Zaid Ibrahim

Azahn Munas

Ayman Fadel

Inayat Bunglawala

Shahla Khan Salter

Nakia Jackson

Jeewan Chanicka

Taj Hargey

Michael Muhammad Knight

Shehnilla Mohamed

Urvah Khan - LGBTQI+ ally, co-founder of Muslim Pride Toronto

Writer Sabina Khan

Activist Jerin Arifa

Imam Khaleel Mohammed

Imam Tareq Oubrou

Imam Dr Rashied Omar

Shaykha Fariha Fatima al-Jerrahi

Shaykha Amina Teslima al-Jerrahi

Scholar Hussein Abdullatif

Maysoun Douas

Fátima Taleb

Aydan Özoğuz

Omid Nouripour

Özcan Mutlu

Ekin Deligöz

Cem Özdemir

Artist Nadia Khan

Marina Mahathir

Siti Musdah Mulia

Karima Bennoune

Grand Mufti Sheikh Assadullah Mwale

Muneeb Qadir

Dr. Amir Hussein

Dr. Sana Yasir

Dr. Sali Berisha

Dr. Omer Adil

Hashim Thaçi

Albin Kurti

Supermodel Nadia Hussain

Irish-Bangladeshi singer Joy Elizabeth Akther Crookes

Salma Hayek

Fouad Yammine

Pakistani Director Asim Abbasi

Pakistani Actress Nadia Jamil

Indian Actor Saqib Saleem

Indian Actor Irrfan Khan

Indian Actor Aamir Khan

Indian Actress Zeenat Khan/Aman

Indian Actress Shabana Azmi

Indian Actress Saba Azad

Indian Actress Sara Ali Khan

Indian Actress Huma Qureshi

Indian Director Zoya Khan

Pakistani Actor Furqan Qureshi

Bangladeshi Actress Azmeri Haque Badhon

Actor Muneeb Butt

Indian Actress Zareen Khan

Indian Actor Imran khan

Pakistani Actress Mehar Bano

Filmmaker Faruk Kabir

Filmmaker Saim Sadiq

Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

Riz Ahmed

Zayn Malik

Sally El-Hosaini

Malala Yousefzai

Hafid Abbas

Hojatoleslam Kariminia

Singer Sherina Munaf

Writer Alifa Rifaat

Writer Ismat Chughtai

Activist Nida Mushtaq

Activist Aan Anshori

Abdul Muiz Ghazali

Kyai Hussein Muhammad

Marzuki Wahid

Gigi Hadid

President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) - ally of waria or transgender females

Sinta Nuriyah - ally of trans & waria folks

Politician Keith Ellison

Mayor Sadiq Khan

Politician Ilhan Omar

Politician Rashida Tlaib

Politician Rushanara Ali

Politician Nabilah Islam

Politician Shahana Hanif

Politician Rama Yade

Politician Humza Yousaf

Politician Zarah Sultana

UK Sectratary General Zara Mohammed

Turkish politician Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu

Bengali Influencer Sobia Ameen

Shaykh Michael Mumisa

Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan

Mufti Abdur Rahman Azad - Hijra ally

Sheikh Hasina - Ally of hijra-intersex communities

Mustafa Akyol

Iftikhar Chaudhry

Amani Al-Khatahtbeh

Professor Muhammad Aslam Khaki

Mohammad Hashim Kamali

Mehrdad Alipour

Lawyer Imaan Mazari/Iman Mazari

Shireen Mazari

Syed Murad Ali Shah

[transparentgentlemenmarker]

By January 16, 1979, Reza Shah fled Iran during the Revolution. The revolution started off as a popular movement fueled by outrage against government extravagance, corruption, brutality, and the suppression of individual rights, before being taken over by Khomeini

September 27 2022

[quakerjoe]

Here, I'll do it FOR you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

I was about ten when this went down. I watched as a country that wasn't all that different from us go right down the shitter for all females in Iran. We, the USA, built that and we're about to do it here at home.

Tehrain in the 60s or early 70s. Women went to school/college. They dressed like this. They were career oriented people.

And today:

This conversion to a government based on far, far right religious beliefs led to:

Overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and monarchy

Constitution of the Islamic Republic replaced Persian Constitution of 1906 with referendum

Ruhollah Khomeini becomes the new Supreme Leader of Iran

Iran hostage crisis

Consolidation of the Iranian Revolution

Beginning of the Iran–Iraq War

Hijab for all women by law

1979 oil crisis

Massive exile that characterizes a large portion of today's Iranian diaspora

Islamic revival worldwide[3]

International sanctions against Iran

Anti-Americanist regime change

Iran designated state-sponsored of terrorism

This is literally where we're headed if we don't stomp out the GOP today. Side with them, either by voting for them or by simply doing nothing, at not only your own peril but sooner or later it'll be someone you love and deeply care about and by then it's too late to change your mind.

[sgiandubh]

I have an honest question. Why did Sam hold hands with a known hooker walking down the street like they were boyfriend and girlfriend in a relationship? What was the purpose of that? I mean he was seen with other women not even a week or two after. Where is the hooker now and why hasn’t he introduced her to his mother?



Dear Hooker Anon,

Neither your question, nor yourself, are honest here - and I, buttercup, am a 46 years old hag, not a 6 years old chickadee. So let me flex my brain muscles and ask you, in turn: what is your point stirring that pathetic dried shite again? Are you that bored?

All around the world, men and women do make mistakes. All around the world, 365 days a year (and even 366, if you count in all those leap years, too). Childish mistakes, sordid mistakes, #silly mistakes, stuff that should, can and will backfire horribly - and so on, and so forth. WHO IN THE NAME OF HOO-HA ARE YOU TO JUDGE? The Spanish Inquisition? Ruhollah Khomeini? Mao's Red Guards? What gives you the right and the moral leverage to do so?

I remember my own long and imbecile string of one night stands, Anon. You're not very serious when you are 19 and just went to live in Paris, by yourself - nor should you, to be honest. Do you think I ever introduced any of those guys to Shipper Mom? ROFLMAO: nobody ever told you that one night stands are precisely meant for instant consumption & ditching, and never make it to the 'meet the parents' umpteenth base?

And yes, you'd be sickly happy to remind me S is a 44 year old man, not a 19 year old law sophomore with very loud hormones. You'd be right, at least on the surface of things. But what about 'nothing to see there, except a horribly botched set-up'?

As for the hooker, I don't know where she is and I don't care. I seldom use my neurons, time and energy with subpar plots, like this one.

[justforbooks]

Ebrahim Raisi

Ruthless prosecutor linked to thousands of executions who rose through the theocratic ranks to become the president of Iran

The career of Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, who has been killed in a helicopter crash aged 63, was defined by violent events. His initiation into politics was triggered by the 1979 Iranian revolution, one of the most cataclysmic and epoch-shaping events of the late 20th century, which unfolded with headline-grabbing drama as Raisi was just turning 18.

Given the heady fervour of that revolutionary period, with daily mass street demonstrations eventually leading to the toppling of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the country’s once seemingly invincible western-allied monarch, followed by the return from exile of the messianic cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to ecstatic acclaim, it is perhaps no surprise that a militant, impressionable young activist was sucked into the political system that took shape in the aftermath, was moulded by it - and later participated in some of its more unsavoury actions.

With the theocratic Islamic regime in its infancy, tottering in the face of often violent internal opposition and military attack from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which invaded Iran in September 1980, the young Raisi cut his political teeth in the fledgling system’s judiciary, administering revolutionary justice to political opponents.

He apparently did so with precocious aplomb and a ruthlessness that some say bordered on cruelty. In 1981, aged only 20, he was appointed prosecutor of Karaj, a large town near Tehran; within four months, he was combining that role with prosecutor of Hamadan province, more than 300km away. Political executions during this period were commonplace, although the young Raisi’s direct role in those were unclear.

By 1985, his ideological commitment and judicial zeal earned him a significant promotion to the post of deputy prosecutor of Tehran, Iran’s sprawling capital. He was now well and truly part of the newly formed establishment, so much so that he eventually came to the direct attention of Khomeini, by now undisputed leader of the revolution, who reportedly gave him extrajudicial responsibilities.

It was this relationship that led to a baleful episode that cast an enduring shadow over Raisi’s career and which, critics say, should be the legacy for which he should be remembered.

In 1988, he was among at least four judicial and intelligence ministry-linked figures later revealed to have been members of a shadowy “death committee” established on Khomeini’s orders to oversee the execution of thousands of political prisoners.

According to varying estimates, between 1,700 and 4,400 prisoners – mostly members of the dissident Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), but also leftists, and many of them reportedly in their teens – were summarily put to death. Amnesty International said many had been subject to torture and inhumane treatment. To this day, the executions represent arguably the worst violation of human rights in the 45-year history of the Islamic Republic.

A surviving political prisoner, Iraj Mesdaghi – a writer and activist now exiled in Sweden – recalls seeing Raisi, dressed in plain clothes rather than clerical robes, arriving at Gohardasht prison in Karaj for the purpose of making sure executions were carried out and personally witnessing them. One photograph of Raisi from the period depicts a very different persona from the austere, turbaned figure of his presidential years.

How Raisi acquired such pitiless zeal is open to question. Born into a clerical family, near the religious shrine city of Mashhad, he had begun seminary studies in Qom – seat of Iran’s Shia Islamic establishment – at the age of 15, studying at the Ayatollah Borujerdi school at a time when the city began to be plunged into a state of pre-revolutionary ferment, with cassettes of the exiled Khomeini’s sermons being distributed among devout opponents to the shah’s rule.

Whatever the antecedents, there can be no doubt that Raisi’s commitment to Khomeini’s puritanical vision of Velayat-e-Faqih (rule by Islamic jurisprudence) was unambiguous and lasting.

Under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini as supreme leader after the latter’s death in 1989, Raisi ascended to a series of senior judicial positions that kept him close to the heart of the theocracy, including the role of special clerical court prosecutor from 2012 until 2021 and head of the judiciary. During his two years in the latter post, he oversaw more than 400 executions, according to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights organisation.

At the same time, as the regime under Khamenei – who has the last word on all state matters – turned its face against liberalising reform, Raisi’s political stock rose. With the supreme leader’s apparent approval, he stood in the 2017 presidential election as a conservative candidate but was beaten soundly by the incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, a centrist who had taken on the mantle of a reformist in a climate that had become steadily more intolerant of a loosening of Islamic strictures on social behaviour.

In 2021, once more with Khamenei’s backing, Raisi tried again and this time prevailed, on a historically low turnout of 48.8% and with 3.7m ballots not counted – either because they were deliberately left blank or voters had written in protest choices, in anger over the mass disqualification of other candidates.

As a president he seemed a markedly greyer figure than previous incumbents, such as the populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Mohammad Khatami, the popular cleric who had become a champion of reformism by trying to relax the social impact of Iran’s rigid religious rules.

But the political – and contrasting – effect of having Raisi in office became clear in September 2022 following the mass protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who had been arrested for alleged improper observance of Islamic hijab. Her death spawned a wave of rebellion and the launch of a self-styled movement calling itself “Woman, Life, Freedom”, with women openly flouting strict rules on wearing head covering.

In response, Raisi presided over a brutal clampdown resulting in the deaths, so far, of at least 500 protesters. Repression in the Islamic Republic was not new, but critics detected in the severity of the response an ideological zeal greater even than the crackdown on the 2009 protests that had greeted Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election.

Raisi’s reward for such orthodoxy was to be spoken of as a possible supreme leader-in-waiting, in succession to Khamenei, who is 85. The abrupt ending to his life in a downed presidential helicopter terminates a controversial political career and renders such speculation moot.

Raisi is survived by his wife, Jamileh Alamolhoda, a writer and scholar, whom he married in 1983, and their two daughters.

🔔 Ebrahim Raisi, politician, born 14 December 1960; died 19 May 2024

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