Ali Razini, a criminal judge who in the past four decades has perpetrated serious human rights violations.
During his tenures in various positions of judicial authority, he oversaw the executions of political prisoners, the extrajudicial assassinations of dissidents and undesirables, and issued orders for shockingly inhumane punishments like stoning.
As a religious magistrate in Bojnurd, Ali Razini frequently issued heavy sentences to political prisoners, including death sentences.
Following his record oppression of political dissidents in Bojnurd, he was appointed to Revolutionary Court do the same in Mashhad.
As a religious magistrate in Mashhad, Razini presided over summary trials lasting mere minutes, frequently issuing death sentences to political prisoners. During his tenure, he disproportionately sentenced many young women to death for mild crimes, such as distributing flyers.
The families of some of the young women sentenced to death by Razini in the early 1980s in Mashhad’s Vakilabad prison, discovered that they had been raped prior to execution by prison guards. Sima Matlabi, Mandana Mojaverian and Mitra Mojaverian were among them. Sima Matlabi was posthumously discovered to have written under her feet that she had been raped.
Mojaverian’s family discovered that their daughters were raped in prison when IRGC guards brought dowries and flowers to their house, saying that IRGC brothers married their daughters before their executions. According to the testimonies of two political prisoners sentenced in the early 80s, Ali Razini issued death sentences for the female political prisoners.
In 2018 while he was Head of Branch 41 of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Court, Ali Razini described the 1988 massacre of thousands of political prisoners as ‘lawful and just,’ during his appearance on the television show, Dastkhat.
In August and September 1988, thousands of political prisoners were executed under Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa (religious order), pursuant to the intelligence and judiciary authorities’ decisions. At the time of the mass executions, the victims had already served, or were currently serving their prison sentences.
The 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran is recognized as a crime against humanity by international human rights lawyers such as Geoffrey Robertson, as well as by the Iran Tribunal people’s court and Human Rights Watch.
Positions:
• Revolutionary Court Magistrate in Tehran from 1980 to 1981
• Revolutionary Court Magistrate in the city of Bojnurd in 1981
• Revolutionary Court Magistrate in the city of Mashhad from 1981 to 1984
• Revolutionary Court Prosecutor in Tehran from about 1984 to most likely 1986
• Director of Political Ideology for the IRGC in 1987
• Head Magistrate of the Special Clerical Court from June 1987 to June 2012
• Chief of the Judicial Organization of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic from 1987 to 1993
• Chief of the Special Military Court in 1988
• Head of the University of Judicial Sciences and Administrative Services from 1993 to 1994
• Chief Justice of Tehran Province from 1994 to 1999
• Executive Deputy of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Court from most likely 1999 to 2004
• Chief of the Islamic Republic’s Administrative Justice Court from 2004 to 2009
• Representative for Hamedan in the Assembly of Experts from 2006 to 2016
• Legal and Judicial Deputy to the Islamic Republic’s Judiciary from 2009 to 2014
• Appointed by the Supreme Leader as a Board of Trustees Member at the Council of the Leader’s Representatives in the • Islamic Republic Universities
• Appointed by the Supreme Leader as Board of Trustees Member at the (Al-Zahra Society) Women’s Islamic Science Center
• Founder of the Faculty of Theology at the Al-Zahra Society
• Faculty Member at Islamic Azad University
• Founders’ Board Member of the Payame Noor University branch in Razan, Hamedan
• Presently, Head of Branch 41 of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Court
