Iran’s Raisi ahead of U.N. Meeting: Mass Execution of Political Prisoners a ‘Proportionate’ Punishment

Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi defended his involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners, calling it a “proportionate” punishment, during an interview that aired just ahead of his arrival in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly.

Raisi was one of four members of a panel in Tehran that carried out a fatwa issued by then-supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, approving the executions of political prisoners in 1988. The precise number of prisoners executed as a result of that process is disputed, though some estimates say that the Iranian authorities killed a few thousand people.

In 2019, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Raisi personally — blocking his assets — for his role in the mass killings. At the time, Raisi was the head of Iran’s judiciary. Treasury also alleged that Raisi was involved in the nationwide crackdown on protesters during Iran’s Green Movement in 2009.

During an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Raisi first described the allegations of his involvement in the 1988 massacre as “just allegations and claims made by members of a terrorist group.” Pressed by host Leslie Stahl on the matter, however, Raisi seemed to defend the commission’s work, saying that the perpetrators of crimes in Iran face trial and receive punishment.

“They were assassinating people. And what happened to them was exactly proportionate to what they did,” he said.

Raisi is expected to attend the U.N. General Assembly High-level Week in New York, starting today.

Over the past several weeks, President Biden has faced pressure from Congress to deny Raisi a visa to enter the United States over his involvement in the killings. In a bipartisan letter led by Representative Young Kim, 52 House lawmakers urged Biden to block the Iranian president’s entry.

While the U.S. government abides by an agreement requiring it to permit the entry of foreign officials to attend meetings at the U.N. headquarters, it has previously blocked certain individuals from doing so, citing “security, terrorism, and foreign policy” exceptions. The State Department in 2020 blocked then-Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif from attending a U.N. Security Council meeting.

State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel recently told reporters that the U.S. “is generally obligated” to issue visas to foreign officials to attend U.N. meetings.

Iran’s continued efforts to assassinate current and former U.S. government officials, as well as Raisi’s involvement in the tribunal, could be justification for denying Raisi a visa.

During the 60 Minutes interview, Raisi denied that Iran is trying to kill former national-security adviser John Bolton and other officials. “That’s the type of actions that the Americans and Zionist regimes are doing in the world. We are not going to carry out the same actions,” he said.

Raisi also said that he does not see a potential meeting with Biden on the sidelines of the U.N. gathering as “beneficial. In addition, he cast doubt on whether the Holocaust happened and said that Israel is a “false regime” that has been allowed to “take root.”