Iran’s eliminated tyrant Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spent nearly 37 years as the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, overseeing a murderous, oppressive regime with more than 30,000 state-sponsored executions under his watch.
The 86-year-old tyrannical cleric – who assumed control over the Islamic Republic of Iran in June 1989 — has been widely condemned over the past few decades for violating human rights, sky-high execution rates, violently suppressing protests and mass discrimination.
He has crushed a slew of nationwide demonstrations, including protests in 2022 supporting Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who died after being arrested for allegedly violating strict hijab rules.
There were 2,201 people executed last year under Khamenei’s rule — the most grisly yearly total under his regime. It continued a decades-long tradition of discriminating against religious minorities, same-sex couples, women – and anyone who criticized the government, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
And he ordered the deaths of as many as 10,000 protesters or more who hit the streets in recent months to demand change.
The protests started over the country’s economic hardship but escalated into demands for the end of the Islamic Republic’s tyrannical rule.
Khamenei’s long history of human-rights abuses and restricting freedom of speech includes sidelining reformists and permanently silencing political adversaries or anyone who opposed or questioned his beliefs.
Journalists and bloggers were put on trial for blasphemy by his regime, and their sentences reportedly included lashing and jail time, with some dying in custody.
Khamenei previously served as Iran’s president from 1981 to 1989. He was the longest-serving head of state in the Middle East.
Khamenei was a major figure in the 1979 revolution that led to the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and was previously exiled for three years under the shah’s regime.
