Mohammad Jafar Mahallati
Professor Jafar Mahallati of Oberlin College is accused of serving the Iran regime’s interests and acting as unregistered foreign agents of Iran, the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism. Furthermore, Mahallati played a part in covering up or facilitating the Islamic Republic’s crimes against humanity.
AAIRIA has obtained new evidence showing that Iran’s Permanent Mission to the U.N. appointed Mahallati in December 1997 as “‘Special Advisor in Political Affairs’ with full diplomatic and political privileges.” He served in this capacity while simultaneously employed as an adjunct professor of international affairs at Columbia University.
Key Points on Mohammad Jafar Mahallati
Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, who is currently a tenured professor of religion and chair of Middle East and North African studies at Oberlin College, served as ambassador and permanent representative of the Islamic Republic Iran to the United Nations between 1987 and 1989. Mahallati is now an American citizen. Oberlin College and Conservatory is a small, prestigious liberal arts college based in Oberlin, Ohio. Since joining Oberlin’s faculty in 2007, Mahallati has branded himself as the “professor of peace” on campus for his purported focus on interdisciplinary “friendship and forgiveness studies.”
Background: 1988 Iranian Prison Massacres
Coinciding with Mahallati’s tenure as ambassador, the Islamic Republic of Iran executed an estimated 5,000 political prisoners held in detention across Iran. According to an Amnesty International report published in 2017, Mahallati, in his official capacity as ambassador, “denied the mass executions” as part of the Iranian government’s broader concealment of the extrajudicial and summary killings.
In July 1988, the Islamic Republic’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering the executions of political prisoners, including those who supported the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq, and political leftists, such as members of the communist Tudeh Party and Kurdish Komala Party. This religious decree created a four-man “Death Commission” that sentenced and executed the adherents.
In August 1988, then-Deputy Supreme Leader Hossein Ali Montazeri condemned the ongoing executions of prisoners and warned the commission members that “[h]istory will write [them] down as criminals,” according to an audio recording released in 2016
On November 29, 1988, Mahallati, serving as Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, denied the mass killings—including in a meeting with the UN special representative on the situation of human rights in Iran—and claimed they were “battlefield killings,” according to the Amnesty report. On December 3, 1988, Mahallati again denied the executions and labeled a pending UN General Assembly resolution on the matter “unjust.”
The UN General Assembly “expressed grave concern” about the executions in an early December 1988 resolution, according to the report. On January 26, 1989, the UN special representative for Iran issued a report in which he disputed the Iranian government’s denials and listed the names of over 1,000 individuals allegedly killed. He also called for a “detailed investigation” into the deaths. According to Amnesty International, Iran’s representative told the UN Commission on Human Rights in March 1989 that Iran would respond to the special representative’s reports, but a full response was never submitted
Timeline
October 2020
2020 On October 8, 2020, Kaveh Shahrooz, a Canada-based lawyer, human rights activist, and nowsenior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, submitted a letter to Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar, objecting to the employment of Mohammad Jafar Mahallati. Lawdan Bazargan, whose brother was executed in the 1988 massacres, assisted in organizing the letter with Shahrooz, whose uncle was killed by order of the Death Commission upon which Raisi sat. Local media covered the nascent campaign for the college to remove Mahallati from his position and to apologize to the families of those killed by the Death Commission.
On October 9, 2020, Mahallati denied allegations that he covered up for the regime’s mass killings, writing that he “did not receive any briefing regarding executions” while serving at the UN. Oberlin College’s newspaper, The Oberlin Review, reported on the letter and Mahallati’s response.
On October 21, 2020, writing in The Oberlin Review, Deljou Abadi, director of Iranian Refugees Alliance, published additional evidence demonstrating Mahallati’s knowledge of summary executions in 1988. This evidence included UN documents and reports submitted to the international organization during Mahallati’s tenure as ambassador
February 2021
On February 23, 2021, Fox News revealed that, while Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Mahallati said the establishment of the State of Israel violated the “provisions of the United Nations charter.” Mahallati downplayed the violent nature of the first Palestinian intifada, according to his speeches, and said “Palestine is an Islamic territory.” In 1983, he also said that “the Baha’i community conducted immoral activities under the cover of religion,” referring to the persecuted minority religious sect, according to Fox News.
March 2021
On March 16, 2021, The Jerusalem Post reported that Columbia University removed an entry from its website listing Mahallati as a visiting fellow at the university’s Middle East Institute. Mohammad Jafar Mahallati’s brother Mohammad Hossein Mahallati served as “head director of the Alavi Foundation for years, and Columbia University received hundreds of thousands of dollars [in] donations from this foundation,” according to Lawdan Bazargan, as quoted in The Jerusalem Post. In 2017, the U.S. government sought to seize a 36-story New York City office building partially owned by the Alavi Foundation, which prosecutors alleged was used to launder money to an Iranian state-owned bank.
On March 30, 2021, The Jerusalem Post reported that several of Mahallati’s non-governmental organizations used the logos of the United Nations Global Compact, a UN-sponsored sustainability pact, and the UNESCO Chair on Global Understanding for Sustainability. A separate non-governmental organization and a German-based university also disavowed purported connections to Mahallati’s organizations, according to the report.
April 2021
On April 30, 2021, The Oberlin Review reported that the college administration was “looking into” the allegations about Mahallati’s past, including alleged anti-Semitic and anti-Baha’i remarks. David Hertz, chief of staff at Oberlin College, confirmed the inquiry into Mahallati to the student paper. The status of the investigation is unknown.
Also on April 30, Benjamin Weinthal and Alireza Nader from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies published a summary of the allegations against Mahallati.
September 2022
Members of the House Education and Workforce Committee are familiar with Mahallati and his ties to Iran’s regime. In September 2022, Representative Virgina Foxx co-authored a letter to Oberlin College with Rep. Jim Banks requesting answers about the faculty “vetting process” and the conditions surrounding Mahallati’s employment.2 This letter pointed to the professor’s role on the board of a regime-based journal connected to the IRGC that is openly sympathetic to Hezbollah. Moreover, you cited a 2018 letter from Mahallati to Iran’s Parliament defending his utility to the Islamic Republic as an instructor exporting the regime’s radical brand of Shi’a Islam.
