U.S. State Department’s Deputy Spokesperson condemned on Tuesday the appointment of a controversial ayatollah to head Iran’s all-powerful Judiciary.
Robert Palladino tweeted both in Farsi and in English to say that Ebrahim Raeesi (Raeisi), a conservative Iranian cleric participated in the decision to execute thousands of prisoners in Iran in the late 1980s, and his appointment is a “disgrace”.
Iranian rights activists and independent journalists and political observers received the news of Raeesi’s recent appointment with alarm, as he is expected to continue or even worsen the negative record of Iran’s Judiciary in ignoring due process of law, allowing secret arrests, detentions without indictments and torture in prison.
“The regime makes a mockery of the legal process”, Palladino said, adding “Iranians deserve better”.
Raeesi was a contestant in Iran's 2017 presidential elections and won over 15 million votes, but lost the race to President Hassan Rouhani. His role in the mass killings of prisoners became wide public knowledge during the election.