A New Iran Policy Should Confront Tehran’s Terrorism Targeting Dissidents Abroad

January 24, 2021; by Homeira Hesami, InsideSources

As an Iranian-American who has regularly spoken out against the injustices of the regime in Iran, one might assume I feel no personal threat from a tyrannical government on the opposite side of the world. That is not the case. And the new administration should take stock of a terrorism trial in a Belgian court whose verdict is expected next month. It may have significant policy implications as hundreds of Americans, including myself and many distinguished former officials, were among the targets.

A few months ago, a State Department fact sheet stated, “Iran’s global campaign of terror has included as many as 360 targeted assassinations in other countries, and mass bombing attacks that killed and maimed hundreds.”

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Iran just showed it has no intention of improving ties with the West

December 15, 2020; by Editorial Board, the Washington post

IRAN HAS been signalling its interest in returning to the international agreement curbing its nuclear activities once President-elect Joe Biden takes office next month. But the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is also demonstrating that improving its tattered relations with the West is not a priority. That was driven home with the execution on Saturday of Ruhollah Zam, a dissident journalist who lived in France before he was abducted and returned to Tehran.

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Iran Nuclear Deal Distracts From Regime Crimes Against Humanity

October 18, 2020; by Homeira Hesami, Issues & Insights

Long before the current United Nations General Assembly, it was well-understood that Iran policy would feature prominently in high-level debate. Iranians inside and outside the country were looking forward to it. But they recognized that the focus would most likely be far too narrow, with little bearing upon their efforts to secure a democratic, secular and non-nuclear future.

Leading Western powers have remained heavily preoccupied with the fallout from President Donald Trump’s 2018 withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA). The international community’s single-minded focus on Tehran’s nuclear program has been detrimental to the Iran policy because it ignores key dimensions of the regime.

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UN Must Investigate Iran's Major Crimes

September 23, 2020; by Ken Blackwell, CNS News 

In 1988, when Iran’s rulers brutally executed potentially more than 30,000 political prisoners, including teenagers and pregnant women, the world community kept silent. In fact, to this date, the United Nations (UN) has not formally investigated this unprecedented crime against humanity.

Students of history know that the case was raised at the time but the diplomatic community refused to pay due attention and did not hold the ayatollahs accountable for what a number of experts have described as the worst crime against humanity in the second half of the 20th century for political convenience. And history has proven that was a major mistake with grave consequences for the Iranian people.

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The UN Failed to Address Iran's Crimes Against Humanity, It's Time For Western Democracies to Step In

August 3, 2020; by Taher Boumedra, Town Hall

U.S. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus on July 17 called on the international community to conduct independent investigations into the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran, and to provide accountability and justice.

Following a fatwa handed down by Ayatollah Khomeini, then the regime’s supreme leader, in mid-July 1988, over several months more than 30,000 political prisoners, primarily affiliated with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), were secretly mass executed after mock trials that lasted just five minutes. Their corpses were doused with disinfectant, packed in refrigerated trucks, and buried at night in mass graves across the country.

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