BEAST IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Iran elects new president Ebrahim ‘The Butcher’ Raisi who had pregnant women tortured and ordered vile mass executions
IRANIAN hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi has won a landslide victory to be declared the country's next president - but he has a bloody history steeped in murder and executions, activists claim.
Raisi - known by some as The Butcher - seemingly stormed to victory after winning some 50 per cent of the 29million votes cast in the election on Friday.
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The 60-year-old's securing of the office means all arms of the Iranian regime are now in the hands of ultra conservative hardliners.
He will take power next month when the reigns are handed over by outgoing - and more moderate - leader Hassan Rouhani.
Iran's president is the second-highest ranking official in the country, second only to the Ayatollah.
And his victory comes after an attempted boycott of the election after Iranian authorities disqualified candidates pushing for regime reforms.
Raisi stood on a counter-corruption platform amid ongoing economic hardship in Iran, but the judge's history is steeped in blood.
Opposition activists claim he will only further push Iran away from the West amid ongoing tensions - spreading bloodshed and terror across the Middle East.
He has allegedly ordered the torture of pregnant women, had prisoners thrown off cliffs, had people flogged with electric cords, and has overseen countless other brutal acts of violence.
As head of Iran's judiciary, the traditionalist cleric is a close ally of the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose confidence he has gained after holding key positions of power over four decades.
Raisi earned his "Butcher" nickname was allegedly involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in the 1980s.
It's reported that he was a key member of the so-called "Death Commission" which ordered thousands to be killed in the massacre of 1988.
Raisi is nothing more than a product of a regime that produces monsters
Mahmoud Royaee
Some 30,000 men, women and children held in prisons all over Iran were lined up against the wall and shot within just a few months, say those battling to oust the regime.
Iran has never acknowledged the mass executions and Mr Raisi has never addressed the allegations about his role in them.
And the regime currently carries out around 250 executions a year - the most in the world aside from China.
Amnesty International have also said that Raisi should face investigation for "crimes against humanity" and torture - including allegations he saw protesters brutalised during unrest in 2019.
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Amnesty chief Agnès Callamard said: "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."
Iran continues to be a challenge in the Middle East for the West as it is alleged to back terrorist groups around the world and be seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
Farideh Goudarzi was eight months pregnant when she says she was seized by the authorities in Iran over her support of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).
However, despite her condition she told The Sun Online she was not spared the horrific and brutal torture regularly doled out in the Islamic Republic at that time.
She said the very first time she came across brutal Raisi was when she was dragged into a courthouse torture chamber at the age of 21 in the summer of 1983.
Iran's executions & torture
Iran carries out around 250 executions a year - the most of any country in the world aside from China.
Under its Islamic Penal Code, a death sentence can be handed down for crimes such as kidnapping, adultery, drinking alcohol and political crimes as well as murder.
Victims can also have their fingers amputated for counts of petty theft - leaving just the thumb and palm - using a guillotine-like tool.
Children as young as 12 can also be sentenced to death, which is against international law.
And torture is believed to rife in Iran's prisons, with electric shocks, floggings, water boarding and sexual violence used on prisoners, according to human rights groups.
Stoning to death for adultery also remains on the statute books, though the latest figures show none have been carried out recently.
Electric shocks in prisons see victims strapped into a chair and forced to confess to crimes with the power being turned up if they don’t.
Raisi was one of the seven men tasked with torturing her after she was taken into custody, she claims.
She told The Sun Online she was dragged into a room covered in blood where she was lashed with electric cables - and little did she know the blood was actually her husband's.
Farideh says Raisi truly deserves his nickname - The Butcher - and says all the torture and execution orders were handed down by him.
She said her husband was tortured for days before then being hanged from a crane aged just 24 - with their son being born in prison having never met his dad.
The mother believes Raisi was singled out for power at such a young age as he was notoriously brutal - with the regime enjoying the stonings and beheadings he ordered.
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Meanwhile, Mahmoud Royaee who was rounded up by the Iranian authorities when he was an 18-year-old student for a "thought crime."
Royaee spent ten years in prison where he suffered tortured after being offered the chance to make a TV confession - which he declined.
Mahmoud had hoped the torture he endured while being questioned would stop once he was jailed - he was wrong.
Hours after entering prison his head and eyebrows were shaven by guards and he was forced to EAT them.
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He said: "Raisi used to beat prisoners with an electric cable. The first time I was beaten on the soles of my feet I tried to count but the pain made that impossible.
"He was also one of their rare judges which signed a religious sentence for someone to be thrown off a cliff. Raisi is nothing more than a product of a regime that produces monsters."
Mahmoud added: "To imagine this heinous creature could be put in the president's seat is unthinkable. The families of all those that have been killed just cannot tolerate that."
He has now called on the international community to call time on Iran's archaic leaders.
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Mahmoud said the thought Raisi could be elected and then accepted by the international community will be too much to bear for the relatives of those killed.
"Apeasement towards the regime's behaviour has allowed it to put Raisi up as the preferred candidate for president so the international community should take part of the blame.
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"Raisi will be used as a wolf to terrify the people of Iran. What other reason is there to put a person hated all over the world in such an important position.
"The Iranian people do not expect the international community to go along with the so-called apeasement policy."
Supporters celebrate Raisi's victory as Iran's new president
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