Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, August 23, 2020—The U.S. Department of State visa restriction announcement for 14 Iranian regime terrorists, including 13 so-called diplomats involved in the assassination of Dr. Kazem Rajavi, was broadly covered worldwide.
Dr. Rajavi, who was the representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Switzerland, was one of the most respected and great human rights defenders, a renowned jurist and first Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations after the 1979 revolution.
The designation of Iranian regime terrorists involved in the assassination of Dr. Rajavi was a necessary step, albeit one that was delayed for many years.
NCRI President-elect Mrs. Maryam Rajavi welcomed the designation of 14 regime officials and described it as an essential and effective step to combat terrorism and to safeguard the security of European countries. She also underscored that the delay of designation, prosecution, and punishment of the assassins of Dr. Rajavi by European countries has emboldened the regime in shedding blood and engaging in terrorism and has cost many more lives and prolonged mullahs’ rule.
The Iranian regime’s history of terrorism
After the death of its founder Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian regime planned to eliminate its internal and external opposition figures. The mastermind of this plan was then-president Hashemi Rafsanjani, who also enjoyed support from the West as the leader of the so-called current of reformists and moderates within the regime.
The first target was Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, the leader Iranian Kurdish group KDPI. He was assassinated on July 13, 1989, in Vienna by Iranian regime terrorists who planned to meet him for a supposed negotiation meeting. At the time, poor efforts by Austrian authorities allowed the murderers to return to Iran, where they were warmly received and rewarded by regime officials.
Dr. Kazem Rajavi’s assassination
Another renowned figure was Dr. Kazem Rajavi, the brother of Iranian Resistance leader Massoud Rajavi. The fatwa for his murder was issued many years ago by Khomeini himself. Dr. Rajavi played a significant role in the U.N. in revealing the Iranian regime’s human rights violations in the 80s. Through his tireless efforts and hard work and deep political knowledge, he succeeded for the first time in 1985 to condemn the Iranian regime’s human rights violations at the UN. He helped to expose the true face of Khomeini’s crimes to the world. He was hated by the mullahs for exposing the regime’s crimes against humanity, especially against political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.
He became the voice of thousands of executed and tortured political prisoners. He famously said, “We write the history of human rights with our blood.”
Rafsanjani’s government made the assassination of Dr. Kazem a priority. Finally, on April 24, 1990, near his home in Geneva, Dr. Kazem Rajavi was assassinated by agents of the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).
Undeniable and ignored evidence
The passports of 13 diplomat-terrorists and MOIS agents involved in the assassination of Dr. Rajavi were stamped “on mission” in one day. They returned after their mission was completed with pre-booked tickets to Tehran. The Iranian Resistance provided the full details of the operation, the perpetrators, and their commander to the Swiss judiciary. But Switzerland refused to follow up the case seriously and a Swiss judge explicitly said, “We do not want to put our hands in the snake’s nest.” Switzerland was afraid that investigating the case would further provoke the regime to commit terrorism.
In June 2020, the Prosecutor for Vaud Province in Switzerland announced the “future closure” of Dr. Rajavi’s file because of the “statute of limitation.” The Iranian Resistance objected to the decision, leading the Swiss government to retrace its steps and keep the case open.
Two years after Dr. Rajavi’s Assassination, two of his murderers were arrested in France, but the Government of Jacques Chirac extradited them to Iran as part of its policy to appease the mullahs.
Appeasement and concession only encouraged the mullahs to continue carrying out acts of terror against the Iranian people and the Iranian Resistance on European soil in the years that followed. In none of the cases, the perpetrators were prosecuted or punished. The only exception was a trial that began in October 1993 by a German court that issued an international arrest warrant for Iranian intelligence minister Ali Fallahian for ordering of assassination of Kurdish activists in Mykonos restaurant in Berlin in 1992.
A measure of justice, and the next step
The constant revelations and efforts of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and the NCRI disgraced the policy of appeasement. In the past decades the MEK and NCRI have constantly revealed the regime’s illicit activities, including its terrorist plots and its nuclear program. These tireless efforts have gradually led to a change of policy, making it undeniably clear that the Iranian regime is a threat to global peace and security and upping the ante for giving concessions to the terrorist mullahs.
Without realizing the shift in the international equations, the mullahs once again tried their hand at terrorism in 2018. This time, they sent one of their diplomat-terrorists, Assadollah Assadi, to plot a bomb in Iranian Resistance’s annual gathering in 2018 in Villepinte, near Paris. He was caught by German authorities red-handed, while delivering the explosives to the hit team in Germany. He is now being tried in Belgium, the first time an Iranian diplomat is being prosecuted for direct involvement in terrorism.
This shift in policy also shows itself in the latest U.S. measure against the Iranian regime terrorism in designating 13 officials for the assassination of Dr. Rajavi. This brings a measure of solace to the Iranian people and their resistance movement, who are still grieving the loss of one of their dearest members. But this is just the first step of a long-overdue policy to bring the Iranian regime to justice for its many crimes against the Iranian people.
As Mrs. Rajavi emphasized in her statement, this designation must be complemented by the prosecution of the orchestrators of Dr. Rajavi’s assassinatoin, including regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei; then-ministers of Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Ali Fallahian and Ali Akbar Velayati; and Hassan Rouhani, who at the time served as the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.
