ByBENJAMIN WEINTHAL
Updated:

Austrian President and independent politician Alexander Van der Bellen congratulated Iran's incoming President Ebrahim Raisi on Thursday. Raisi was previously sanctioned by the United States government for his role in the mass murder of Iranian dissidents in prison and protestors.

The reports about the congratulations appeared in a tweet by Iran’s Ambassador to Austria Abbas Bagherpour and in an article published by the Iranian regime-controlled media.

Bagherpour wrote that “President Van der Bellen in an official message cordially congratulated President-elect Dr. Ebrahim Raisi, wishing him every success, referring to 7 centuries of friendly relations, re-assuring him of continuation of multi-faceted bilateral relations in every fields.”

The media report appeared in the state-controlled Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Thursday. It said that, “In his message, the Austrian president said he was confident that cordial relations between Tehran and Vienna will continue in all areas. He wished success for President-elect Raisi and said that his country, as the host of multinational negotiations over Iran nuclear deal, is ready to make any cooperation.”

The IRNA report added that Van der Bellen "expressed hope that the Vienna talks will yield fruit in the near future.”

Mina Bai, an Iranian-Norwegian columnist and political commentator with the Norwegian newspaper Nettavisen, told The Jerusalem Post that “I think it is disgusting that a European president from a democratic country congratulates a man that has been directly involved in the execution of thousands of political prisoners. People like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, [Chinese Premier] Xi Jinping and [North Korea's] Kim Jong also have congratulated Raisi."
She continued, “Is Austria at the same level? It is not the first time Austria embarrasses itself. This month the police prevented Iranian dissidents from demonstrating in front of Grand Hotel in Vienna where JCPOA negotiations are going on. This is against free speech.” 
The prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Kaveh Moussavi tweeted, “Shame on you, president of Austria, congratulating a mass murderer who through massive fraud has muscled his way to the presidency of Iran. We are going to remember this abject cowardice when we rid Iran of this murderous kleptocracy! Don’t say we didn’t warn you!”  

The IRNA report added that Van der Bellen "expressed hope that the Vienna talks will yield fruit in the near future.”

The great powers are holding talks with Iran’s regime in Vienna to bring Tehran back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord. The US wishes to reenter the atomic deal after then-president Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement because it did not prevent Iran’s regime from continue working to build nuclear weapons.
The Post sent a Twitter query to Bagherpour, whose title on the social media platform is ”PhD in Public International Law; Ambassador of I.R. Iran to Austria and Slovakia.”
The Post also sent press queries on Saturday to Van der Bellen and his spokespeople Reinhard Pickl-Herk Sprecher and Inge Hausbichler.
 
Johannes Aigner, a spokesman for Austria's Foreign Ministry, told the Post: "It shouldn't be overrated. Congratulatory notes are customary in international relations between countries that have diplomatic relations. It shouldn't be taken as anything more than that."
Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen (credit: Wikipedia)
 Austria has had a long tradition of strong relations with Iran, including sending the first western foreign minister, the Social-Democrat Erwin Lanc, to visit Tehran in 1984 after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
 
Since Raisi won what the US State Department deemed a “pretty manufactured” process, commentators have frequently described Raisi’s execution sprees as mass murder. “In a perverse parody of democracy, Iran last week elected a mass murderer and extreme hardliner, Ebrahim Raisi, as its new president,” wrote Greg Sheridan in The Weekend Australian.

Raisi played a central role in the executions of at least 5,000 innocent political prisoners in 1988. He was part of a four-man "Death Committee" that sent dissidents to their killing without a shred of due process.

Sheina Vojoudi, an Iranian who fled the Islamic Republic due to repression and now lives in Germany, told the Post that "If it's true that Mr. Van der Bellen congratulated Ebrahim Raisi, maybe it's worth knowing that Raisi is the judge that presided over the mass executions of political prisoners during the 1980’s, and Navid Afkari's death was also under his watch." Afkari was an Iranian wrestler who was convicted of murdering a security guard during the 2018 Iranian protests and was executed in September 2020, despite international outcry.

Vojoudi added that "He's selected by the leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei, because they're alike in cruelty. The minimal participation in this presidential elections delivered an important message to the world's politicians to show that the regime has lost its legitimacy and the Iranian people do not recognize him as the president."


The Iranian-American human rights activist Lawdan Bazargan, whose brother Bijan was hanged in 1988 during the prison massacre, told the Post, "Khamenei picked Raisi, a member of the 'Death Commission' who is implicated in the 1988 massacre of  political prisoners, LGBTQ hanging and execution, and long sentences for the protesters, as the President of Iran, to send a message to the world that  the Islamic Republic of Iran does not respect international laws and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Austria has a long history of siding with Nazis and Hitler. This shocking recognition of henchman Raisi is another stain on Austria's history."