Don’t be fooled by Iran’s state-orchestrated crowds. Khamenei was a blood-soaked tyrant – Struan Stevenson
A true memorial for Iran’s former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is to be found in the testimony of his many victims
For six days, the clerical regime in Tehran intends to wrap former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the mantle of martyrdom. State-orchestrated crowds, rivers of black-clad mourners, military pageantry and carefully choreographed displays of devotion will seek to elevate Iran's Supreme Leader into an icon of Islamic resistance.
History demands a different verdict. Khamenei leaves behind neither a legacy of greatness, nor one of statesmanship. He leaves a blood-soaked record of repression, terror and cruelty that stretches across almost four decades. Behind every carefully rehearsed eulogy stand thousands of shattered families, countless political prisoners, silenced journalists, persecuted women and innocent civilians whose lives became expendable in pursuit of ideological fanaticism.
The architects of this grotesque spectacle hope the world will remember Khamenei as a defender of Iran. Future generations should remember him as the chief custodian of one of the world's most brutal theocratic dictatorships. Few episodes illustrate that brutality more starkly than the 1988 massacre of political prisoners.
Crimes against humanity
More than 30,000 men and women, many already serving prison sentences, faced summary proceedings in front of infamous "death commissions", before execution and burial in secret mass graves, simply for swearing allegiance to the main democratic opposition movement – the People’s Mojahedin of Iran/Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK).
Human rights experts, United Nations officials and survivors have spent decades demanding accountability for these crimes against humanity. Throughout those years, Khamenei defended the system that carried out those atrocities and presided over a regime determined to erase both the evidence and the memory of its victims.
His rule rested upon fear. Freedom of speech became a criminal offence. Independent newspapers disappeared. Trade union leaders were jailed. Human rights lawyers endured persecution. Students, academics, artists, ethnic minorities and religious communities all discovered that dissent carried a devastating price.
Iranian women bore a particularly heavy burden. Khamenei transformed compulsory veiling into a symbol of state control. Generations of courageous women faced harassment, imprisonment, violence and intimidation simply for demanding the most basic freedoms.
Every young woman who removed her hijab in defiance of oppression exposed the profound insecurity of a regime terrified by liberty. The nationwide protests that erupted following the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for not wearing her hijab properly, revealed the true character of Khamenei's regime.
Young Iranians marched for dignity, justice and freedom. His government answered with bullets, arbitrary detention, torture and executions. International investigators documented grave human rights violations, while countless families continue searching for justice for loved ones who never returned home.
Exporting conflict and terrorism
Khamenei's malign influence reached far beyond Iran's borders. Under his direction, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) evolved into the principal engine for exporting revolutionary extremism. Tehran armed, financed and trained an extensive network of proxy militias whose activities destabilised an entire region.
Hezbollah became Iran's most powerful foreign legion. Hamas received decades of financial, military and political support. The Houthis transformed into a formidable regional threat. Powerful Iraqi militias expanded Tehran's influence through intimidation and violence.
Rather than investing Iran's immense oil wealth in schools, hospitals, jobs and prosperity, billions disappeared into proxy wars that brought devastation to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza and beyond. The barbarity of October 7, 2023, when Hamas carried out murder, torture, hostage-taking and atrocities against Israeli civilians, shocked the conscience of the civilised world.
Debate continues regarding the precise role played by Tehran, yet the long-standing sponsorship, financing, training and arming of Hamas under Khamenei's leadership remain beyond serious dispute. His regime helped sustain one of the Middle East's most dangerous terrorist organisations.
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Assassination plots and terrorist attacks
Iranian terror was not confined to the region. Iranian intelligence services and the Revolutionary Guards have faced accusations and criminal investigations linked to assassination plots, bomb attacks and terrorist operations across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and elsewhere. Iranian embassies too often became instruments of intimidation rather than peaceful engagement.
In Iran, ordinary citizens watched their country descend into economic misery. Inflation soared. Corruption flourished. Youth unemployment remained stubbornly high. Vast national wealth enriched the Revolutionary Guards and a privileged clerical elite while millions struggled simply to make ends meet. Khamenei endlessly blamed foreign enemies for Iran's failures, yet the greatest enemy of Iran's prosperity sat at the apex of its own political system.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy lies in the way Khamenei distorted Islam itself. His doctrine bore little resemblance to the compassion, justice and mercy embraced by Muslims worldwide. Instead, religion became an instrument of persecution and fear. Faith served political absolutism. Dissent became apostasy. Loyalty to the Supreme Leader eclipsed every principle of accountability. That corruption of religion inflicted profound damage upon Islam's standing throughout the world.
Now the regime asks Iranians to celebrate the life of a man whose rule extinguished so many lives and dreams. No quantity of banners can conceal mass graves. No military parade can erase decades of torture. No funeral procession can wash away crimes against humanity. No carefully choreographed mourning can transform a dictator into a martyr.
The Iranian people deserve a future founded upon democracy, the rule of law, equality between women and men, freedom of religion and genuine respect for human rights. They deserve leaders who build bridges not militias, schools not prisons, prosperity not perpetual confrontation. Khamenei represented the opposite of that vision.
His funeral may last six days. The suffering he inflicted has scarred generations.
History eventually strips away propaganda, exposing all tyrants. When that final judgment arrives, Khamenei will stand alongside those rulers whose names evoke repression, fanaticism and fear. The world should resist every attempt to sanctify his memory. His true memorial lives in the testimony of his victims.
Struan Stevenson is a former MEP and chair of the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup. He is an author and international lecturer on the Middle East.
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