Tom Barrack says the Islamic Republic is “not an evil regime,” just very religious. Mr. Barrack, let me remind you of what this regime has done. It began in 1979 with executions. Within weeks of coming to power, the Islamic Republic was lining people up before firing squads. Revolutionary courts handed down death sentences after summary proceedings. Political opponents, military officers, ethnic minorities and others were executed as the new rulers consolidated power. In the early 1980s, thousands more were executed, including teenagers. Families were sometimes forced to pay for the bullets used to kill their children. Survivors have recounted how virgin female political prisoners were raped before execution because their captors believed it would prevent them from entering heaven. In 1983, 17-year-old Mona Mahmudnizhad was hanged alongside nine other Baha'i women for refusing to renounce her faith. In 1988, thousands of political prisoners were sent to their deaths, many after interrogations lasting only minutes. Their bodies were buried in secret mass graves. Families were denied even the dignity of knowing where their loved ones lay. And the atrocities never stopped. Nine-year-old Kian Pirfalak was shot dead during the 2022 protests. Sixteen-year-old Nika Shakarami disappeared after joining demonstrations and was later found dead. Consider Jamshid Sharmahd, a German-Iranian American dissident abducted by Iranian agents in Dubai in 2020 and taken to Iran, where he was sentenced to death after a grossly unfair trial. He was killed in Iranian custody in 2024. When his body was finally returned to his family, an autopsy revealed that his tongue, larynx, thyroid and heart had been removed. Imagine his daughter's anguish, fighting for years to bring her father home, only to receive his mutilated body. In 2026, 19-year-old wrestler Saleh Mohammadi was publicly executed. Twenty-five-year-old Alireza Sepahi was executed after reportedly marrying his imprisoned fiancée just hours before his death. Then there are twin sisters Taraneh and Romina Rahimi, arrested following anti-regime protests. According to accounts from their family and lawyers, they were beaten and tortured. Interrogators threatened to rape Romina in front of Taraneh to extract a confession. Taraneh was sentenced to death, while Romina received decades in prison. And I cannot forget the father desperately searching for his 25-year-old son among the bodies at the Kahrizak forensic complex after the January 2026 massacre. His voice, captured on video, calling out again and again: “Sepehr-e Baba, where are you?” His son had been shot dead during the protests. A father who should have been welcoming his son home was instead searching through the dead, hoping to recognize his child. And 17-year-old Sam Afshari, shot during January's protests in Karaj. His father, Parviz, told me that bystanders took his wounded son to hospital, where doctors were trying to save his life. With a breathing tube still in his mouth, security forces shot him. His mother could only identify his disfigured body by the tattoo on his chest that read “Mother.” Sam was their only child. He had dreamed of studying computer engineering and joining his father in Germany. Instead, his family buried him with all the dreams he would never get to live. Think of the thousands of other parents who endured that same nightmare. Mothers and fathers searching morgues, examining photographs of bodies, burying their children and then facing intimidation simply for mourning them. For nearly five decades, the Islamic Republic has executed political opponents, tortured prisoners, persecuted religious minorities, imprisoned lawyers, crushed women's rights and terrorized families who dared demand justice. And that is not even half of it. Not even close. Mr. Barrack, religion is not an excuse for rape, torture, mass executions, shooting children or mutilating the bodies of political prisoners. These are acts of evil. And dismissing nearly five decades of such atrocities as merely being “very religious” is an insult to every victim, every grieving parent and every family still fighting for justice.