Iran complicit in killing 500,000 Syrians, says ex-lawmaker

Iran is complicit in the killing of some 500,000 Syrians, former Iranian lawmaker Faezeh Hashemi said yesterday.

Hashemi, the daughter of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, told Iran Watch that it was “unlikely that Israel had killed between 100,000 and 200,000 Palestinians,” adding that Iran had killed “more Muslims than Israel.”

“Iran’s internal and external policies are irrational, and, like the Taliban, are based on propaganda,” Hashemi explained, noting that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ soldiers and the so-called Basij militia had joined the president’s administration as “governors and ministers”.

She warned President Ebrahim Raisi of “facing more threats in the future.”

“The national elections that brought Raisi to power were, like everything, planned in advance,” she reiterated.

On the economic front, Hashemi slammed Vice President Mohammad Mokhber for “not understanding the importance of privatisation and economic reforms as a leader of the government’s economic team.”

“Corruption in Iran is not limited to official’s high salaries, but to the appointment of unqualified people to key posts in the government,” she stressed.

On the Western sanctions on Iran, Hashemi said that the sanctions had caused “fundamental problems,” adding the impact of the government’s mismanagement was “greater”. “Without mismanagement, the sanctions would not have been imposed in the first place,” she said.

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