by Serwan Zangana
The American and Israeli missile attacks on Iran and killing the Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has sparked a backlash and shook the world. Unsurprisingly, the differing views among the American politicians regarding the attack created another division and impacted the public’s view. Confronting the Iranian regime by the U.S was inevitable, as Iran has always been engineering terrorist operations in the Middle and threatening the region’s nations, including Israel.
The Islamic regime of Iran has been fueling militias and armed groups in the region to perpetrate attacks and cause chaos in the neighboring countries. Since the Islamic Republic captured the control of Iran in 1979, its leaders and clerics have been promoting the philosophy of radicalism and attempting to export their ideology to the world while preaching the anti-Israel and its allies.
The Iranian regime has committed the most heinous acts against freedom of religion and abridged the rights of minorities by persecuting thousands of Iranians. According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), Iranian authority in 2024, ordered over 900 execution and death sentences for religious reasons and charges based on beliefs that are opposing the Iranian form of Islam.
Also, according to the (USCIRF), the Iranian regime has organized groups to target and harass religious dissidents outside Iran and attack Jewish sites in Denmark and Sweden. Apparently, the Islamic Republic of Iran does not believe in the existence of minorities, and the Iranian religious clerics control the system. According to Freedom House, the ultimate power was in the country’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s hand, and all the unelected institutions, including the security forces and the judiciary as they play a major role in suppressing the dissidents and abridging the civil liberties in Iran were under his control.
For decades, majority Iranians have been living under the oppressive Islamic Republic in fear, as such a regime perceiving itself as a divine power not only in the country but in the region as well. The Iranian regime has brought a disaster to a country that embraces a rich culture, and since the day one of establishing its Islamic Republic, the bloodshed and murders by the rulers have been part of the Iranian community.
Iranian people are only allowed to view the world from the Islamic style of Iran, and people are prosecuted for embracing different beliefs. Mai Sat, the special United Nations (U.N) rapporteur on human rights has clearly expressed her concern to the (U.N) about the persecution of the Christians in Iran. The Islamic Republic’s discriminatory of Christians in general, and the Christians convert has been a major issue in Iran.
U.N rapporteur on Freedom of Religion Nazila Ghanea reported that Christians convert face harsh punishments and severe sentences. In 2024, 96 Christians faced 263 years in prison, and the Justice System in Iran is only serving the regime and empowering the Islamic Republic, and indeed opposing the system will bring death upon people.
Furthermore, the persecution of the religious and ethnic minorities is part of the Islamic Republic, which based its revolution on such unjust philosophy since 1979. According to Foundation for Defense of Democracies, before the regime took over the control of the country, the Jewish population was 120,000. However, after seizing the power, the Islamic regime of Iran began executing the prominent Jewish figures in Iran, and thus, many Jewish people left the country.
It is noteworthy that on many occasions, the Iranian authorities have denied Holocaust that resulted in murdering approximately six million Jews, which was perpetrated by the Nazis between 1941-1945. Such an oppressive regime of Iran is definitely aligning itself with the other oppressive regimes, including the Nazi, in the world.
In addition to the Christians and Jewish, other religious minorities are not immune from the persecution of the Iranian government. For example (Baha’i) faith, which was established in the 19th century in Iran (Persia), has been suffering under the rules of the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to Human Rights Watch, between June and November 2025, more that 750 Baha’i followers were persecuted.
After all, learning about the atrocious acts of the Islamic Republic of Iran can be a factor to realize that eliminating their supreme leader, Ali Khamenei was indeed necessary for human rights and freedom of religion as it was also a relief for many Iranians.
