In recent days, Iranians have been left to deal with devastating floods and natural disasters as restrictive measures have yet to ease. Over the past week, hundreds of people have lost their lives due to floods and landslides, with many more trapped under the rubble or remaining missing. 

Rather than help those in need, the mullahs of the Iranian regime have significantly intensified exercising inhumane punishments to show their mercilessness. Such brutality is not new to most of the society, who witnessed the extrajudicial executions during the eight-year war in the 1980s. 

The current president, Ebrahim Raisi, was formerly a judicial official who led thousands of political prisoners, mostly affiliated with the Iranian opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), to the gallows in 1988. Other current officials are former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, who led tens of thousands of teenage students to minefields using their favorite ‘human wave’ military tactic. 

In the 1980s, the Iranian regime could easily hide its egregious crimes, either in prisons or on battlefields, thanks to a lack of communication progress. These days, thanks to advancements in technology, they are no longer able to keep the people of Iran and the international community in the dark. 

There is no doubt that the mullahs have taken power through vicious suppression and arbitrary executions. In 2021, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointed Raisi as president, signaling he would respond to any grievance with force.  

Under Raisi, the IRGC and State Security Command (SSC) lethally cracked down on peaceful protesters in Isfahan, Khuzestan, Chahar Mahal & Bakhtiari, and other provinces. At the same time, the regime’s judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i issued and implemented enormous inhumane sentences. 

According to the Iranian opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and many human rights groups and activists, the regime has hanged at least 251 inmates in the past year alone. At the same time, the judiciary has issued several terrible punishments of eye gauging and hand amputations and implemented several amputation sentences under the excuse of Qisas [retaliation].  

On August 3, the NCRI stated, “In the final ten days of July, 33 prisoners were hanged, and public executions resumed. At least seven prisoners were killed under torture in the past year. Most of the victims were accused of drug trafficking, whereas the IRGC and Hezbollah control the massive drug trade and its transit outside Iran.” 

A week earlier, on July 27, Amnesty International condemned the horrific wave of executions in Iran. Diana Eltahawy, the Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said, “The state machinery is carrying out killings on a mass scale across the country in an abhorrent assault on the right to life. Iran’s staggering execution toll for the first half of this year has chilling echoes of 2015 when there was another shocking spike.” 

The regime’s brutal approach to citizens’ protests has proven that the officials have been disappointed to sow the expanded rift between the state and society. Exercising inhumane punishments indicates the regime’s vulnerability versus the ongoing socio-economic demonstrations. 

In such circumstances, the international community should not remain silent as Raisi continues to crackdown inside Iran. The civilized world should hold him and the entire regime to account, instead of rolling out the red carpet in the United Nations General Assembly or giving more concessions during the futile nuclear talks. 

The NCRI’s President-elect, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi has previously said, “The dossier on human rights violations in Iran should be referred to the United Nations Security Council, and Khamenei, Raisi, and other regime leaders should be brought to justice for four decades of crimes against humanity.”