In his introduction ceremony as the new chief of the judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi said that security is the most important issue for the country and justice is “secondary” to that.

Raisi continued: “We consider security as the most important issue of the country. We will be tough on organized violent crimes and any disruption in the national security.”

Raisi also emphasized the full execution of laws and said: “I am not going to say that executing the laws are the same as executing justice. But if we are to agree on one principle that is the closest to justice, that would be the law. Everyone has to follow the law. No one will be able to evade or go around it.”

In recent years most political and human rights activists have been arrested for security charges and human rights organizations believe Iranian courts procedures are against legal regulations and standards.

Raisi is attending his introduction ceremony as the chief of judiciary while his appointment was faced with heavy criticism due to his role in the massacres of the 1980s.

As the deputy attorney general of Tehran, Raisi had a definitive role in the mass executions of incarcerated dissidents especially in 1988. Almost 5000 political dissidents were executed without trial in the Summer and fall of 1988.

 An audio recording of Ayatollah Hosseinali Montazeri, Khomeini’s next-in-line at the time was released years later that in it, in the presence of Raisi, Montazeri calls the executions the greatest crime of the Islamic Republic.