While Iranian President Rouhani pledged to usher in a new era of human rights for Iranians, the person held out as a “moderate” has presided over a regime that continues to engage in massive repression.

As nuclear negotiations continue, so does the systematic and widespread violation of human rights in Iran.

While negotiations respecting Iran’s nuclear weaponization program resume this week, they should neither overshadow nor sanitize the regime’s ongoing abuses.

What follows is an overview of some of the serious human rights violations in Iran that serve as a litmus test for the authenticity of Rouhani’s commitment to human rights for the Iranian people.

1. Culture of impunity

This summer marked 26 years since the Iranian regime’s 1988 Prison Massacre. For five months beginning in July 1988, the regime of then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini executed thousands of Iranian dissidents, thereby purging any opposition to the absolute authority of the ruling clerics. These executions were carried out by fatwah – a religious decree – with the victims denied any semblance of due process as their guilt was proclaimed. Twenty-six years later, the Iranian regime not only continues to suppress evidence of the massacre – while rebuking family requests seeking information surrounding the execution and burial of the victims – but continues to provide political and financial rewards to the perpetrators.

Read the article in full at Times of Israel.