Juno News - June 04, 2021


Iranian dissidents boycotting ＂sham＂ presidential election

Mentioned
Ali Khamenei Ayatollah Andrew Lawton Show Abdul Nasser Hammati Bashar Assad Ali Larijani Ali Safavi Khomeini Raisi Assad
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Episode Stats


Length

18 minutes

Words per minute

137.17

Word count

2,502

Sentence count

132

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On June 18th, Iran is holding its presidential election, and Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has pre-screened the candidates to see who will be chosen by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Guardian Council, a 12-member body appointed by the supreme leader to vet candidates.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Canada wants to pretend it is the grand poobah of human rights
00:00:13.120 and talk about all of this soft power it wants to project and all of that jazz.
00:00:17.300 But when it comes to the real things that are happening in the world
00:00:20.400 and the real nemeses of freedom, Canada is nowhere to be found.
00:00:25.200 Canada will not say an unkind word about China
00:00:27.800 and Canada has by and large turned a blind eye to what's happening in Iran
00:00:32.440 where I want to turn for this segment because coming up on June 18th
00:00:37.020 Iran is having a presidential election
00:00:39.840 and I say election with a little bit of reticence
00:00:42.440 because all of the candidates running for the election have been pre-selected by a council
00:00:47.280 which is selected by Iran's Ayatollah, by the regime.
00:00:51.680 So it really isn't an election at all because you can't vote against the regime
00:00:56.200 which is handpicking who can stand for election
00:00:58.840 and thus what the election's result is going to be.
00:01:02.280 There have been a number of protests of this including a boycott campaign
00:01:07.160 from Iranian dissidents and a resistance group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
00:01:12.200 Joining me from the NCRI's Foreign Affairs Committee is Ali Safavi.
00:01:16.760 Ali, good to talk to you again. Thanks for coming on today.
00:01:19.080 Of course. Thank you very much, Andrew, for having me on the show again
00:01:22.760 and looking forward to a great conversation.
00:01:25.280 Now, this idea to people who value democracy of candidates being pre-selected
00:01:32.000 by basically the status quo, by the regime, is quite incompatible with democracy
00:01:39.380 and this is not just a theoretical value that they have there.
00:01:43.660 They've disqualified dozens of candidates as I understand it.
00:01:47.280 Indeed. In fact, in the past 40 years, the electoral process in Iran has never been
00:01:57.120 about the Iranian people expressing their opinion freely and fairly.
00:02:03.720 In one word, it has been a travesty, which is neither fair nor free.
00:02:10.680 And as you mentioned, the candidates must be vetted.
00:02:15.200 Interestingly, the body that does the vetting is a 12-member body called the Guardian Council,
00:02:23.020 six of whose members are appointed directly by the regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
00:02:29.800 And the other six are appointed by the judiciary chief, who is himself appointed by Ali Khamenei.
00:02:37.200 So, in effect, he is appointed all 12 members and indeed for anybody to pass, if you will, reality check test for the Guardian Council,
00:02:51.200 they must prove their heartfelt allegiance and practical obedience to the supreme leader and the principle of absolute clerical rule.
00:03:03.200 This year, there were 592 candidates and the Guardian Council eliminated all but seven.
00:03:13.020 But interestingly, some of the people who were disqualified were not just members of the rival faction,
00:03:20.600 people who identify with Rouhani, mistakenly dubbed by Westerners as moderates, but some of the closest allies of Khamenei himself,
00:03:31.600 members of his inner circle, like Ali Larijani, who was a parliament speaker for 12 years.
00:03:37.600 He was the head of the state radio and television.
00:03:40.420 He is an IRGC Brigadier General.
00:03:43.420 He was the secretary for the Supreme National Security Council.
00:03:47.420 And, of course, he was also, he is actually the head of the headquarters that is negotiating the 25-year strategic pact with China.
00:03:59.420 So, clearly, I think the elimination of Larijani points, if anything, to the kind of, if you will, paranoia and anxiety
00:04:09.420 that Khamenei feels about the prospects of another uprising like the ones we saw in November 2000, in December 2017, January 2018 and November 2019,
00:04:23.420 which basically shook the regime to its core.
00:04:26.420 And so he has felt that this time around he cannot allow any divergence whatsoever from the policies that he has laid down and his red lines.
00:04:38.420 When we look at these seven candidates, you would know the players of Iranian politics better than I do,
00:04:44.420 but I have read from various sources that of the seven, most are hardliners.
00:04:48.420 But there are two candidates that are classified a bit more as reformers and a bit more moderate.
00:04:54.420 One of the names that was put forward in a piece I read by one outlet had said that it was a lesser known candidate,
00:05:01.420 but Abdul Nasser Hamati is one that is a bit more of a moderate.
00:05:05.420 So they haven't just kept entirely pro-regime candidates, correct?
00:05:10.420 Well, I think calling Hamati a moderate, I think, is too far-fetched.
00:05:18.420 We call that Hamati was the governor of the central bank.
00:05:22.420 And obviously he, like other cronies of Rouhani, have been in all of the looting and plundered.
00:05:30.420 That said, he was declared as qualified to run because he has a snowball's chance in hell to come out of the ballot box.
00:05:40.420 So is that, sorry to interrupt there, but is this basically just so that the Guardian Council can say they didn't rig the entire thing,
00:05:49.420 just to put, you know, one or two people that don't have a chance that are not regime loyalists?
00:05:54.420 Well, he is a regime loyalist because remember that everyone within this regime over the past 40 years,
00:06:02.420 whether some people want to call them moderates or want to call them hardliners,
00:06:08.420 when it comes to strategic policies of this regime, namely domestic suppression, exports of terrorism,
00:06:17.420 the ballistic missile program, the nuclear weapons program, meddling in the internal affairs of regional countries.
00:06:26.420 They are all on board. If there is any difference is in terms of some of the tactics.
00:06:32.420 When it comes to people like Hemmati, remember the elections in Iran, if you want to call them elections,
00:06:40.420 are determined not by what comes out of the ballot box, but it is the result of the internal balance of power.
00:06:49.420 And so as such, when you have somebody like Ibrahim Raisi, who is currently the judiciary chief.
00:06:56.420 And he's the favorite, the correct, the most likely winner?
00:07:00.420 He's the preferred candidate. And Larijani was eliminated to ensure that Raisi will come out of the ballot box.
00:07:09.420 And remember that this man is a mass murderer par excellence.
00:07:15.420 Since he was 19, he became the prosecutor in the province of Hamadan, western Iran. 0.86
00:07:22.420 He has no formal academic education. He has no formal even religious education.
00:07:29.420 And for 41 years, all that he has done has been issue death sentences.
00:07:36.420 I spoke to a former political prisoner, a woman who spent six years in Hamadan prison.
00:07:44.420 And she told me that Raisi was her torturer, and she was nine months pregnant.
00:07:50.420 And she ran by me like dozens of names of her cellmates that Raisi sent to the gallows.
00:07:57.420 And also, worse than that, when Khomeini issued a fatwa to liquidate all political dissidents,
00:08:06.420 particularly the members of the Mujahideen al-Khargi MEK in 1988, Raisi was the key member of a death commission
00:08:15.420 that sent 30,000 political prisoners who were already serving time.
00:08:20.420 None had been sentenced to death. They pulled them before kangaroo courts.
00:08:25.420 And they asked him a question, what is your affiliation?
00:08:28.420 And if they said MEK, they would be sent to hang.
00:08:32.420 And Raisi oversaw that quite diligently, 24 hours a day, such that in a matter of two, three months,
00:08:40.420 they wiped out all dissidents within the prisons of Iran.
00:08:44.420 So he is known in Iran, by the way, as the henchman of 1988.
00:08:51.420 And there's a hashtag that has gone viral by Iranians, both inside Iran and outside of Iran.
00:08:59.420 So clearly, I want to say that this is not really an election.
00:09:04.420 And by bringing Raisi out of the ballot box, in some respects,
00:09:11.420 Khamenei has shown the way he wants to move forward when it comes to domestic issues.
00:09:17.420 And of course, with regards to regional issues and international issues.
00:09:21.420 Well, let's talk about those because I know internally, domestically,
00:09:25.420 the Ayatollah needs to consolidate and maintain power.
00:09:28.420 I know you and I have spoken in the past about how some of that power may be weakening.
00:09:33.420 But globally, Iran cannot put forward the Ayatollah as its face.
00:09:39.420 And you know, the Iranian regime right now wants the Iran deal with the United States restored.
00:09:44.420 They want more credibility on the foreign stage.
00:09:47.420 They want sanctions lifted.
00:09:49.420 All of these factors are not possible if they have someone who is seen as the Ayatollah's puppet.
00:09:54.420 So how does this kind of manifest?
00:09:56.420 How do they brand the next president to the world to start looking like they are a bit more reform-minded, even if they aren't?
00:10:04.420 Well, for the regime, I must say, in the past 42 years, the number one priority, the number one concern has been the domestic scene.
00:10:17.420 And they have said this many, many times that the existential threat to the survival of this decadent and medieval regime comes not from the United States nor from any other country abroad, but it's domestic.
00:10:35.420 Why?
00:10:36.420 Why?
00:10:37.420 Because the Mullahs, first of all, they usurped the leadership of a popular revolution. 1.00
00:10:41.420 Second, all that they have done in the past 42 years is to murder, to imprison, to torture, to loot, to plunder, to incite violence across Iran's borders, and to blackmail and bully the international community. 0.88
00:11:00.420 So, as such, the Iranian population is very much enraged, and at no time in the history of the regime has the establishment, Khamenei, been so weak and vulnerable.
00:11:16.420 Recall that I mentioned the major nationwide protests in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.
00:11:25.420 And this is where you had the largely unarmed civilians braving killings in the streets and arrests and torture, and coming in droves into the streets.
00:11:38.420 In November, they basically were active in 200 cities across Iran, and the Mullahs felt that they might be overthrown.
00:11:47.420 That is why Khamenei ordered his henchmen to open fire, and they proceeded to kill 1,500 protesters, mostly young people.
00:11:55.420 So, for Khamenei, holding onto his hegemony takes precedence over everything else.
00:12:02.420 Naturally, he milked the Western countries by this so-called moderate hardliner narrative.
00:12:09.420 And the Westerners, some bothered wholesale, some deliberately looking for some petty economic interest, promoted that. 0.66
00:12:19.420 But now Khamenei has realized that this game will no longer work.
00:12:25.420 He cannot tolerate any schism, any fissures at the top.
00:12:32.420 And that is why he has decided to do this, basically in the futile hope and expectation that he can stem the coming tsunami,
00:12:44.420 which is basically simmering beneath the ashes in Iran.
00:12:48.420 And it will come, and when it comes, it is going to be far more ferocious, far more widespread than anything that we've seen before.
00:12:56.420 And you can see that in lots of videos, video clips that are coming out of Iran now.
00:13:03.420 You talked about the MEK and what it does.
00:13:05.420 Well, inside Iran, the resistance units that are affiliated with the MEK have been active in virtually every Iranian city calling for the boycott of the elections.
00:13:16.420 And there are lots of videos that have come out that people say on camera that my vote is overthrow.
00:13:23.420 My vote is regime change.
00:13:25.420 There was a hashtag this weekend that went viral, became a trend.
00:13:31.420 200,000 or more tweets saying boycott the Iran-Sham election.
00:13:37.420 And so in this context is a long answer to your question.
00:13:41.420 For Khamenei, the number one priority is the domestic scene, is the Iranian street and what he needs to do to prevent another outbreak of an uprising,
00:13:53.420 especially since even people within his own ranks, within his repressive forces have defected.
00:14:00.420 They are demoralized and you are very fearful of their future.
00:14:04.420 And they're thinking that the day of reckoning is coming fast.
00:14:07.420 And that is why for him now, his international standing is not at all a priority.
00:14:15.420 That boycott movement you speak to, though, I think is significant to observers like myself.
00:14:21.420 But in a practical, tangible sense, it reaffirms the status quo because the Ayatollah's preferred candidate is reelected if voter turnout is low.
00:14:31.420 Does it make a statement that is significant if voter turnout is low, if the outcome is the Ayatollah's chosen president?
00:14:40.420 I think that the boycott will serve several, if you will, send several signals.
00:14:49.420 One, and this is I think the most important one, is to the international community that this regime is illegitimate.
00:14:58.420 Look, when Bashar al-Assad, they had so-called elections in Syria and Assad won with 95% of the vote,
00:15:09.420 American Secretary of State and I think the French and the Germans, they issued a joint statement rejecting that election as illegitimate.
00:15:20.420 I think that the boycott of the elections obviously will send a signal that they should do the same vis-a-vis Iran.
00:15:29.420 Secondly, it basically removes any justification whatsoever to engage this regime, to interact with this regime,
00:15:41.420 and to offer concessions, whether political or economic concessions.
00:15:45.420 How can you deal with a regime whose president has had a hand in the killing of tens of thousands of political prisoners?
00:15:56.420 How can you justify that? Are you going to shake his bloody hands?
00:16:01.420 And so in that sense, I think that the international community has to look at itself in the mirror and see what they want to do and how they want to proceed.
00:16:10.420 Because this regime, well, it has never had any legitimacy, but it tried to pose itself as a legitimate one by playing this moderate versus hardliner game.
00:16:21.420 But now, that game is over. Remember, in 2017, Iranians in the millions were chanting, hardliner, reformer, the game is not over.
00:16:32.420 Obviously, the West chose to ignore that rallying cry. But now, with Raisi becoming president, it's evident to everybody.
00:16:41.420 The boycott of the election will send a definitive message to all bodies concerned, all parties concerned,
00:16:48.420 that it is time to shift the policy. It is time to stop ignoring and closing eyes to the treacherous conduct of this regime,
00:16:59.420 both within Iran and, of course, beyond its borders.
00:17:03.420 Thanks very much. And before I let you go, Ali, I should ask you about the big event that the NCRI has coming up in just a few weeks' time.
00:17:11.420 From July 10 to 12, there will be a major international gathering. It is called Free Iran World Summit 2021,
00:17:22.420 with the theme being the Democratic Alternative on the March to Victory, which will bring together tens of thousands of Iranians and others
00:17:31.420 from all over the world with some of the most distinguished dignitaries, lawmakers, dignitaries from Canada, from the U.S., from Europe.
00:17:41.420 Basically, for them to echo the call on the international community, that one, they stand with Iranian people in the struggle of freedom,
00:17:49.420 and two, that the international community must change its approach to Iran and stop appeasing the murderous regime that rules Iran today. 0.60
00:17:58.420 Well, I covered that conference last year and look forward to doing it again this year. Ali, thank you very much for your time.
00:18:05.420 Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, Andrew.
00:18:07.420 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.