By Abdollah Pakatchi

Rouhani’s becoming the president of Iran, ten months ago, put smile on some faces. He introduced himself as the new “moderate “president who has the “key”       to all Iran’s social and economic problems. Some western figures considered Rouhani as being a desirable face within the Iranian regime, far from other hardliners.  Rouhani, for them, was an authority with whom they could have more ties and do more business. The Iranian people, however, showed no excitement about Rouhani’s election. .Their sufferings in the past 35 long years have made them experts in understanding the tricks made by this regime. They have, practically, learned that all those inside this regime are anything but moderate. No matter if it is Rouhani or Khamenei or Ahmadi Nejad, Iranian people have experienced with their lives that this regime has no place for any moderate.

Who can really be characterized as a moderate, we may have different means of finding out. Not only our divine books, but conscious and our civilization’s norms would probably define a moderate person as: “You shall not kill. You shall not steal. You shall not lie. You shall not torture.” The Iranian people would, probably, add to this list: “You shall not suppress women. You shall not plunder our wealth. You shall not destroy our agriculture and industry.”

Now, where do you think the new president of Iran, Mr. Hassan Rouhani, fits the description? We cannot go further than the first line. His record for the first requirement “You shall not kill” is very dark. Just until first week of April, his government executed more than 700 people. This record, of course, came under sharp attack both from the Iranian resistance and outside Iran. In the first few weeks of 2014, Amnesty International condemned the executions and reported that, “Since the beginning of 2014, Amnesty International has recorded 21 executions which were officially acknowledged by the Iranian authorities, as well as 19 additional executions reported through reliable sources.”

UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions declared, “It is deeply concerning that the Government [of Iran] proceeds with executions for crimes that do not meet the threshold of the ‘most serious crimes’ as required by international law, and when serious concerns remain about due process rights,”

Speaking recently, to a crowd of Iranian – American community in the state of Arizona, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, commented, “They are going on a killing spree inside Iran. To the world, they present themselves as moderates. Internally, they present oppression, murder and suppression to frighten the hell out of their people.”

The question, in fact, is not whether Rouhani or other members of this regime will heed these criticisms and change their attitude towards the Iranian people. The true question is if any change for Rouhani or, in fact, for the entire regime of Iran, is conceivable.  The ongoing record confirms that this regime will not survive without executions and imprisonments.

What happened after the 700 execution record was that they did not stop, and condemned more Iranians to death. As international protests against the rising executions in Iran became stronger every day, Rouhani, described the anti-human and anti-Islamic executions in Iran as “God’s commandments” or “laws of the people”.  Yet, after that “700”, the executions are continued with no prospect of an end to it:

Three persons were executed in Zabol city of Baluchistan province. The victims had been condemned to death by the regime’s judiciary without having a lawyer and a fair judicial process.

Eight other inmates were executed in one day in Dizel-Abad prison in Kermanshah. One of them had spent 19 years in prison.

On April 17, four prisoners were hanged in Bandar-Abbas prison. Three of them were in the ages of 14, 16 and 17 at the time of their arrest.  On the same day, a 32-year-old Kurd prisoner was sent to the gallows in Kermanshah on the charge of ‘Moharebeh’ (enmity with God).

On April 21, six inmates, including a 20-year-old prisoner, were hanged in the Ghezel-Hessar prison in Karaj, near the capital, Tehran.

On April 22, five prisoners were executed in the Gohadasht prison. On the same day, three inmates, one of whom was 20, were executed in Mashhad

Two inmates, one 50- and the other 32-years-old, were also hanged in Zahedan’s central prison on April 19 and April 22.

On April 29, one prisoner, in section one of Ghezel-Hessar prison in Karaj, was beaten to death by prison guards.

Meanwhile, as reported by the National Council of resistance of Iran, “The Iranian regime’s ‘Supreme Court’ has approved the death sentence for four Kurdish political prisoners held in a prison in western Iran.” They have been sentenced to death for being allegedly linked to Kurdish groups opposing the regime.

Any hope, or advice, that one day this regime stops executions, is an utter hoax.

This regime, which has been condemned more than fifty times by the UN Security Council for its horrible human rights record, cannot survive without executions, torture and terrorism.

United States or European governments might smile at Rouhani as a part of their foreign policies. The Iranian people, taken hostage by this regime, have to pay the price with their lives and their soil.