Iranian dissidents wrote a letter to President Joe Biden this week urging the administration to maintain “maximum political, diplomatic and financial pressure” on the Islamic Republic, preceding a report released by the Iran Human Rights Monitor (IHRM), further substantiating the Iranian people’s urgency, that details the unjust executions of at least 27 prisoners by the Iranian regime in January alone.
“Mr. President, we firmly believe that the new political reality in Iran and the Middle East has provided the Iranian people with a historic opportunity to achieve a peaceful transition to secular democracy…the Islamic Republic Theocracy is on the verge of collapse,” wrote the Iranian dissidents, later citing the Abraham Accords as major reasons for this opportunity.
The letter discusses the brutality of Iran’s government against its own citizens, highlighting the regime’s 2019 massacre of 1500 peaceful protestors and focuses on the resilience of the Iranian people in their quest to live under a peaceful, democratic government.
The case of Iranian prisoner Javid Dehghan, who was executed the last week of January is detailed by the IHRM as one example of the injustice faced by many Iranians at the hands of the regime.
“Iranian authorities executed Javid Dehghan from Iran’s Baluchi minority, despite a plea by the United Nations to halt his execution. He was severely tortured to make confessions. Amnesty has documented a shocking catalogue of fair trial violations in his case,” tweeted IHRM January 30.
Hassan Dehvari and Elias Qalandarzehi were also executed in January because they were allegedly thought to have family members engaged with dissident groups, according to the Baloch Campaign human rights group.
The dissidents are urging President Biden to refrain from reentering the Iran deal, citing the regime’s failure to funnel the freed-up money to its own citizens, rather using the funds to destabilize the region and fund terrorist proxies that exacerbate human rights abuses.
“Following the JCPOA agreement, when Iran received substantial financial benefits, the Islamic Republic lost a major opportunity to implement meaningful welfare reforms for its people, to stop its malign behavior, and pursue a policy of harmony and peaceful coexistence with the regional countries. Instead, the regime spent billions of dollars gained from the Iran nuclear deal on exporting its totalitarian ideology by providing funds to terrorist networks, developing missile technology as offensive leverage to dominate the Persian Gulf and beyond, and causing chaos in the Middle East.”
The regime has set a February 21 deadline for Biden to decide whether he will reenter the Iran deal or continue with Trump’s maximum pressure strategy.
