Help Christians who escaped Gaza: LifeFunder
(LifeSiteNews) — The president of Iran died in a helicopter crash Sunday evening.
Ebrahim Raisi was a Muslim cleric who claimed his family descended from Muhammed, the founder of Islam. He died near Azerbaijan along with other officials who were visiting the country for an event celebrating a new dam, according to Reuters.
Raisi was a Shiite leader who served on the 1988 commission that sentenced thousands of political prisoners to death. He was expected to eventually replace the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Human rights organizations estimate that between 4,500 and 5,000 men, women and children were killed in the summer of 1988 in prisons across Iran,” according to Amnesty International’s summary. “The pattern of political executions changed dramatically from piecemeal reports of executions to a massive wave of killings that took place over several months.”
“The true number of dead, however, is still unknown as the executions were carried out in secret. In fact, many relatives were never told about the killings or where their loved ones had been buried,” Amnesty International reported.
In September 2022, his government killed hundreds of protesters against clerical rule, according to the BBC.
“The ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement was sparked the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who had been detained by morality police in Tehran for allegedly wearing her hijab ‘improperly,” the BBC reported. “Authorities denied she was mistreated, but a UN fact-finding mission found she was ‘subjected to physical violence that led to her death.'”
Raisi oversaw Iran’s further enrichment of uranium and attacks on Israel, according to the Associated Press. He was “a hard-line protégé of the country’s supreme leader who helped oversee the mass executions of thousands in 1988 and later led the country as it enriched uranium near weapons-grade levels and launched a major drone-and-missile attack on Israel,” according to the AP’s article on his death.
“An Israeli official told Reuters it was not involved in the crash,” the news outlet reported. “It wasn’t us.”
Iran also allied itself with Russia and supplied it with weapons to fight Ukraine; Putin called Raisi “a true friend of Russia,” in his condolence message, according to Reuters.
The terrorist group Hamas also mourned Raisi’s death and that of Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, who also died in the plane crash. Hamas thanked them for supporting them in the terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing war.
Help Christians who escaped Gaza: LifeFunder