The Islamic regime in Iran announced their candidates for the so-called presidential election which will be held on 18 June 2021. What the regime calls an election is in fact, by any standard, is a sham as no one other than those in the regime is allowed to be a candidate.
The regime announced 7 candidates who are approved by the regime’s Guardian Council. All the candidates are part of the regime and have had major roles in the structure of the Islamic regime. Two of them, Ebrahim Raisi and Mohsen Rezaee, are specifically responsible for executing and torturing thousands of dissidents in Iran. Ebrahim Raisi is infamous for his role in the massacre of 1988 when more than 5000 political prisoners were executed within just three weeks. He was the member of what was called by the prisoners, the ‘death commission’. Raisi should be arrested and tried for committing crimes against humanity. Mohsen Rezaee, another candidate was the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for almost two decades from 1980 to 1997. IRGC is known to the world as a notorious terrorist organisation that is responsible for arresting, torturing, raping, and executing hundreds of thousands of people in Iran and assassinating and kidnapping dissidents abroad. IRGC was responsible for kidnapping Iranian journalist, Rouhollah Zam, from Iraq, who was torture in prison in Iran and then executed. The crime committed by Mohsen Rezaee and IRGC is numerous and Rezaee was in charge of IRGC in the 80s. The period between 1980 and 1988, is known as the darkest and bloodiest in the history of contemporary Iran when thousands were executed by the Islamic regime. Rezaee too should be arrested and tried for committing crimes against humanity.
Currently, thousands of dissidents are in prison, being tortured, being given lengthy jail sentences, lashes, and even execution sentences. These prisoners are rights activists who have been active in the area of women’s rights, labour rights, environment, religious and ethnic minority, LGBTQ, and also dual nationals. The family of political prisoners is also harassed daily and being arrested. The crackdown on protesters in Dec 2017, August 2018, November 2019, execution of Iranian wrestling champion Navid Afkari in 2020, kidnapping members of opposition group in Iran’s neighbouring country, torturing and exiling female political prisoners to common prisons are only a recent few examples and a drop in an occasion of crimes committed by the Islamic regime.
The message of people in Iran including political prisoners and their families are loud and clear. They do not want the regime and they expressing themselves by putting video on social media or using Farsi hashtags translated as ‘ No to voting’, ‘ My vote is to overthrowing the regime’. They openly expressing that they are boycotting the sham of election and that all the candidates and the regime in Iran are criminals.