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BySusannah Johnston June 16, 2022 When students return to Oberlin College in Ohio in early September, some of them will be taking classes from religion professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, who has been accused of helping to cover up a mass-murder while serving as a diplomat for the Islamic Republic of Iran in the late 1980s. Oberlin administrators have accepted Mahallati’s denials, but they now have more to consider than his guilt or innocence in the alleged coverup. In light of his ties to the Islamic Republic of Iran, they have good reason to question his real agenda at Oberlin. Is he using his position at the school to promote peace and friendship and an honest understanding of Islam, or is he a shill for the Iranian regime? One piece of evidence Oberlin administrators will have to consider in their assessment of Mahallati’s career is a letter he sent to the Iranian parliament in 2018 defending himself against charges of disloyalty leveled at him by hardliners in the Iranian regime. In a letter obtained by FWI, Mahallati emphasized his loyalty and utility to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Writing in Persian to the Iranian parliament, Mahallati told a very different story from the one he tells in English to the Oberlin community, portraying himself as a peacemaker. Mahallati penned the letter in response to the Iranian parliament listing him as a dual national who posed a national security threat. To lend credence to this accusation, his critics reported that he had been arrested by the regime in the late 1980’s upon his return after his term as a diplomat at the United Nations had ended. Mahallati began his letter by noting the importance of his “opportunity to introduce Islamic teachings, especially Qur’anic research, to about a hundred American students each year.” He also declared that the accusations against him “are pure lies, and in my professional life I have never been a dual national government director, nor [have I] taken money from the US government for any political or non-political matter…” In the letter, Mahallati asked Ali Larijani, then speaker of the Iranian parliament, to “take the necessary measures to correct the report, which has libeled and raised utterly false allegations against this humble man, and to delete my name from the report, which has nothing at all to do with what the report is about.” Mahallati affirmed his usefulness to the regime, declaring that it his “national and religious duty” to continue spreading Iranian Shi’ism as a teacher in the West. This national and religious duty should not “neglect the share of Iranian and Shiite culture in this [American] society.” He also mentioned the pervasive influence of the rival Saudis at Georgetown and Harvard. “Currently, many students who study Islam in these institutions are naturally influenced by the menus of their founders and supporters,” Mahallati wrote. “Surprisingly, in this situation, some people in our homeland have tried to harm the two or three remaining Iranian-Shiite teachers in the field of Islamic studies who are still working!” Mahallati further highlighted his value to the regime by reminding the Iranian government how China has benefited from investing outside of China and that Iran should recognize this and do the same. He concludes that “it is still surprising that some are trying to cut the relationship of the community of seven million Iranians living outside of Iran with their motherland. All of this at the time that some countries in the Middle East, together with the United States, are building a consensus for an economic sanctions against Iran!” Mahallati ended his letter by stating that Iran needed to overcome the sanctions against it and that Iranian Americans could do a lot to help. This message in the 2018 letter is similar to the arguments he made in a 2013 article Mahallati wrote for Iranian Diplomacy, a website run by Seyyed Mohammad Sadegh Kharraz, former deputy foreign minister for the regime. In the 2013 article, Mahallati called on Iran to include Islamism in its foreign policy, asking: “Can a Shiite foreign policy neglect the Shiite contribution to the growth of the new generation of Islamic sciences being created in the West?” Mahallati’s 2018 letter is also congruent with his presence on the editorial board of an Iranian journal, Sepehr-e-Siasat, which published an article praising the violent Iranian proxy Hezbollah as “a regional power” that promotes Shiite identity and has taken “important measures to confront the regional domination system and the Zionist regime.” (Mahallati’s name disappeared from the masthead of this publication soon after FWI reported on its presence.) An Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA), a group that advocates for removing Mahallati from Oberlin, member, Frieda Fuchs, a political scientist and former visiting professor at Oberlin College, has concluded that Mahallati uses his position at Oberlin to promote Iranian interests. “As a professor, he teaches his students a cherry-picked view of Islam, aligned with Shia religious values and in line with his country’s official policies,” she said. “He did so in 1988 during his tenure as UN ambassador; he continues to do so today. He is a perfect apparatchik, the devil’s advocate for his regime’s bidding; he projects himself as a messenger of peace, and a victim of a broader Zionist right wing conspiracy.” Mahallati who reportedly spends time in Shiraz, Iran when not teaching at Oberlin, did not respond to request for comment. The upshot is that while Oberlin administrators have dismissed concerns that Mahallati helped cover up a mass killing in 1988, they have yet to contend with his ongoing ties to the regime accused of the crime. Please Click Here for the article.

Islamic studies professor Mohammad Mahallati allegedly covered up the mass murder of political prisoners in Iran, and has called for global jihad against Israel. BY BENJAMIN WEINTHAL (June 7, 2022 / JNS) Iranian Americans and Jewish Americans gathered in Oberlin, Ohio, over the weekend to protest the continued employment of Oberlin College and Conservatory professor with ties to Iran. Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, who teaches Islamic studies at the college, served as Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations from 1987 to 1989 where he is alleged to have covered up the mass murder of political prisoners in the Islamic Republic. Len Khodorkovsky, a former deputy assistant secretary of state and senior adviser to the U.S. special representative for Iran, traveled to Oberlin for the demonstration, which was held during the college’s graduation weekend. He tweeted, “It’s unconscionable for @oberlincollege to continue employing Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, former Iranian regime official complicit in the #1988massacre of 5000+ Iranians. Oberlin’s Board of Trustees should be concerned about the reputational damage this is inflicting on the school.” While at the United Nations, Mahallati has also called for violent global jihad against Israel. Speaking at the United Nations in 1988, he said: “The establishment of the Zionist entity was itself in violation of provisions of the United Nations Charter.” The following year, he defended the violent intifada as “the heroic uprising of Palestinians” and called for a “holy struggle against oppression and Zionism.” The protest against Mahallati electrified the Iranian diaspora, as a direct action against a former top official of the Islamic Republic who has been leading a largely insulated life on the rustic Oberlin campus. Lawdan Bazargan, an Iranian American human rights activist, has spearheaded the campaign to oust Mahallati. She told JNS, “Our campaign started with a simple request: Fire Mahallati, who denied the mass killings of our loved ones and shielded those responsible from accountability.” Bazargan, a leading member of the Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA), continued, “Since Oberlin’s president [Carmen Twillie Ambar] and its board of trustees decided to ignore us, ran a sham and non-transparent investigation, refused to meet with the victims’ families and started rumors about our independence and connections, we now have to appeal to politicians and state and federal authorities.” Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) is one politician who has heeded AAIRIA’s call. “It’s distressing that Oberlin continues to ignore the victims of Iran’s terrorist regime, and continues to defend a former senior Iranian official on their faculty, who is cited in U.N. and Amnesty International reports as having worked to deny mass killings in Iran,” Banks said in late May. “Oberlin owes everyone an explanation as to why Mr. Mahallati was hired in the first place despite his very questionable background, and why they’ve refused to conduct a transparent and independent investigation on this issue,” he said. After Banks spoke out, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told JNS: “Perhaps now Oberlin College will take action regarding why it hired, promoted and continues to protect an ex-Iranian regime figure.” Frieda Fuchs, a former visiting professor in the college’s political science department who is a member of AAIRIA, told JNS: “Three pro-Mahallati protesters carried ‘Stop Political Racism’ signs. One of them sported a keffiyeh. It is not too hard to guess who the intended audience of the signs are. The fact that the relatives of the victims of the 1988 massacres in Iran are on campus for the third time speaks to the fact that Oberlin’s administrators have bought into the story that Mahallati is a soft-spoken professor of peace who is the victim of a well-funded and orchestrated smear campaign launched against him by right-wing Zionist and Iranian pro-Republican warmongers.” Fuchs continued, “It is hard to understand why a school that prides itself on a history of supporting political freedoms and social justice for disadvantaged groups persistently refuses to engage with the relatives of the victims of Iran’s dictatorial regime, most of whom came from the political left.” Bazargan said 16 protesters attended the anti-Mahallati event, including first- and second-generation Iranian Americans, members of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, monarchists, atheists, leftists and secular demonstrators. There was “lots of support from students, parents and some alumni who were dismayed by the whole situation that such a person [Mahallati] is at the school and the administration is whitewashing it,” she said. The activists from AAIRIA said they reached “hundreds of people” with flyers and in conversations. Bazargan said at least two-thirds of the graduating students turned their back on the chairman of the Oberlin College board of trustees, Chris Canavan, because of allegations of union-busting and failure to pay the faculty fair salaries. One student told a member of AAIRIA that students also turned their backs on Canavan because of the Mahallati affair. Hamid Charkhkar, a member of AAIRIA, revealed that Mahallati is on the editorial board of Sepehr-e-Siasat, an academic journal tied to Iran’s regime. Charkhkar told JNS that Mohammad Bagher Khorramshad, Iran’s deputy interior minister for political affairs and a member of the U.S.-sanctioned Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is also on the editorial board. Susannah Johnston, an investigative reporter for Focus on Western Islamism, reported last week on Mahallati’s affiliation with Sepehr-e-Siasat. After the publication of her article, Mahallati’s name was scrubbed from the journal. Sepehr-e-Siasat promoted an article praising Hezbollah, wrote Johnston. The United States, Israel and scores of other countries have classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. No response was received to JNS press queries to Oberlin College by press time. Mahallati has denied the allegation that he committed crimes against humanity in 1988. Oberlin College published a fact sheet on Mahallati in October 2021, claiming that he supported a “two-state solution that would allow Israel and the Palestinian people to exist together in peace.” Oberlin College conducted an investigation into Mahallati last year. “The inquiry did not find proof to corroborate the allegations that professor Mahallati knew of the atrocities at the time he was asked about them during his tenure at the UnitedContinue reading “Protests mount against embattled Iranian Oberlin professor with links to IRGC”

A group of families of executed political prisoners in Iran, Oberlin College students, alumni, concerned citizens of Ohio, and Iranian-Americans will protest for the 3rd time on June 5, 2022, from 11 am to 1 pm EST at the corner of College Street and Main Street, Oberlin, Ohio to raise our voices against the Oberlin College leadership, Mrs. Carmen Twillie Ambar, Oberlin’s President and Mr. Chris Canavan, the Chair of Board of Trustees. They have been protecting professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, accused of denying the mass killing of the political prisoners in Iran and shielding those responsible from accountability. Jim Banks, Congressman of Indiana, who is part of the House Committee on Education and Labor, said; “Oberlin owes everyone an explanation as to why Mr. Mahallati was hired in the first place and why they ignore the victims of Iran’s terrorist regime and continue to defend a former senior Iranian official on their faculty, who is cited in UN and Amnesty International reports as having worked to deny mass killings in Iran.” The new revelations about Mr. Mahallati’s ties to the Islamic Regime of Iran and his defense of FATWA (Islamic Decree) to assassinate the US and British writer Salman Rushdie make him an enemy to the US national security and the liberal values that it stands for. We repeat our campaign demand of October 2020 and ask for Mr. Mahallati’s immediate removal. If Oberlin College’s leadership continues to show a lack of leadership, we will turn to Congress and demand a proper investigation into Mr. Mahallati and Oberlin College’s inactions. For more information contact: Lawdan Bazargan (562) 212-9546  lawdanbazargan@gmail.com Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists http://www.aairia.org

The Chronicle-Telegram Jun 03, 2022 6:00 AM OBERLIN — Another protest calling for the termination of Oberlin College professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati has been set for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday on the corner of College and Main streets in Oberlin. A group of families of executed political prisoners in Iran, college students, alumni, Iranian-Americans and residents plan to rally there during Oberlin College’s commencement exercises on Tappan Square. They accuse Mahallati, who was Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in the 1980s, of denying the mass killing of political prisoners in Iran and shielding those responsible from accountability. Since October 2020, a group calling itself the Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists has been demanding that Mahallati be fired. “If Oberlin College’s leadership continues to show a lack of leadership, we will turn to Congress and demand a proper investigation into Mr. Mahallati and Oberlin College’s inactions,” said a news release from the group. Please Click Here for the article.

By Benjamin Weinthal June 1st, 2022, Gooya News جیم بنکس حمایت خود را از کارزار اخراج محلاتی از کالج اوبرلین اعلام کرد جیم بنکس، عضو کنگره آمریکا از مسئولین کالج اوبرلین خواست تا تحقیقات جدیدی را درباره محمدجعفر محلاتی، استاد مطالعات اسلامی این کالج و نقش او در اعدام‌های دسته‌جمعی تابستان 67 در ایران آغاز کنند. بنکس در این زمینه به روزنامه «جروزالم‌پست» گفت: «این آزار دهنده است که اوبرلین همچنان قربانیان رژیم تروریستی ایران را نادیده گرفته و از یک مقام پیشین این کشور دفاع می‌کند. [محلاتی] در گزارش‌های سازمان ملل متحد و عفو بین‌الملل به عنوان کسی یاد شده است که برای انکار قتل‌های دسته‌جمعی در ایران، اقداماتی انجام داده بود.» او در ادامه افزود: «اوبرلین می‌باید به همه توضیح دهد که چرا آقای محلاتی، علیرغم سابقه بسیار مشکوکش در وهله اول استخدام شد؟ چرا کالج اوبرلین از انجام یک تحقیقات شفاف و مستقل در این زمینه خودداری می‌کند؟» لادن بازرگان، کنشگر سیاسی که قرار است در ماه جاری برای تجمع در برابر کالج اوبرلین به ایالت اوهایو سفر کند، به جزوالم‌پست گفت:« کارزار ما با یک درخواست ساده آغاز شد. اخراج محلاتی از این کالج به عنوان کسی که کشتار دسته‌جمعی عزیزان ما را انکار کرده و برای مقصران آن سپر دفاعی ایجاد کرد تا پاسخگو نباشند. بازرگان و دیگر کنش‌گران سیاسی، بازماندگان اعدام‌های دهه شصت و خانواده قربانیان این کشتار دسته‌جمعی، قرار است در هفته اول ماه ژوئن در برابر کالج اوبرلین تجمع اعتراضی برگزار کنند. به گفته جروزالم پست، ورود جیم بنکس به پرونده محلاتی، توجه دیگر سیاستمداران را نیز به خود جلب خواهد کرد. بنکس اولین نماینده کنگره آمریکاست که از کارزار اخراج محلاتی از کالج اوبرلین حمایت می‌کند. محمدجعفر محلاتی که اکنون به‌عنوان استاد «کالج اوبرلین» در ایالت اوهایوی آمریکا مشغول کار است، متهم به ایجاد «سپر دفاعی» برای عاملان اعدام‌های دسته‌جمعی زندانیان سیاسی مخالف جمهوری اسلامی در تابستان 1367 و جلوگیری از «پاسخگو دانستن» مجریان این اعدام‌ها در سطح بین‌المللی است. سازمان «عفو بین‌الملل» در گزارشی در سال 2018، مدعی شد که محلاتی از جمله مقامات ارشد و دیپلمات‌هایی است که «در مصاحبه‌های رسانه‌ای و مبادلات با سازمان ملل متحد در انکار کشتار جمعی [زندانیان سیاسی] فعالانه شرکت داشتند تا از مسئولین در برابر پاسخگویی محافظت کنند.» Please Click Here for the article.

Oberlin owes everyone an explanation as to why Mr. Mahallati was hired in the first place despite his very questionable background. By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL Published: MAY 31, 2022 15:11Updated: MAY 31, 2022 15:29 In a dramatic development in favor of Iranians seeking accountability for the Iranian regime’s massacre of 5,000 political prisoners in 1988, Congressman Jim Banks (R-Indiana) urged Oberlin College to launch a new investigation of its Islamic studies professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati for his alleged role in the mass murder.  “It’s distressing that Oberlin continues to ignore the victims of Iran’s terrorist regime, and continues to defend a former senior Iranian official on their faculty, who is cited in UN and Amnesty International reports as having worked to deny mass killings in Iran,” Banks said to The Jerusalem Post. “Oberlin owes everyone an explanation as to why Mr. Mahallati was hired in the first place despite his very questionable background, and why they’ve refused to conduct a transparent and independent investigation on this issue,” Banks added. Banks is on the powerful congressional education and labor committee and is spearheading the Maximum Pressure Act to force  Iran’s regime to abandon its reported plan to build a nuclear capable weapons. Banks opposes the Iran nuclear deal, formerly known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The nuclear deal will permit Tehran to develop atomic weapons after a temporary freeze on its nuclear program in exchange for economic sanctions relief, argue JCPOA experts. Mahallati’s history Lawdan Bazargan, an Iranian-American political and human rights activist, who will be traveling to Oberlin College in June to protest Mahallati’s alleged crimes against humanity in 1988. “Our campaign started with a simple request, fire Mahallati who denied the mass killings of our loved ones and shielded those responsible from accountability,” he told the Post. Mahallati served as the Islamic Republic of Iran‘s ambassador the UN from 1987-1989. “Since Oberlin President [Carmen Twillie Ambar]  and its board of trustees decided to ignore us, ran a sham and non-transparent investigation, refused to meet with the victims’ families, and started rumors about our independence and connections, now we have to appeal to politicians and state and federal authorities,” Bazargan added. “If Oberlin College’s leadership does not know how to lead, we will find allies who know how to deal with allegations of mass murder.” Bazargan and members of the  organization Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists will be in Oberlin during the first week of June at the college’s commencement to draw attention to their plight. The clerical regime murdered Bazargan’s brother Bijan in 1988 for his dissenting views and his support for a leftist party in the Islamic Republic. The entry of Banks into the row over Mahallati has raised the stakes. Banks is the first congressional politician to weigh in on the campaign to sack Mahallati. Iranians have generated enormous US and international media traction about Mahallati and Oberlin College’s alleged mishandling of Mahallati’s case. On Oberlin’s campus, there are large rocks used for political messages. Last week, students took photographs of Mahallati painting over a message on a stone that called for him to be fired.  The Post sent press queries to Oberlin College’s spokesperson Scott Wargo and trustees Chris Canavan, Charles Birenbaum and Amy Chen. They did not immediately respond. “I hope that because it’s Commencement, people who aren’t students will pay attention,” Sophie Bernstein, a fourth-year Iranian-American student, told the student paper The Oberlin Review. “I think Oberlin College has failed these protestors in a lot of ways. I hope that a broader audience at Commencement would be more sympathetic than people have up until this point,” she added. Joshua Angrist,  an Israeli-American economist  who won the e Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2021, is slated to deliver a commencement speech at Oberlin College in June. Angrist is a professor of economics for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a graduate of Oberlin College. Iranian-Americans urged Angrist to consider pulling the plug on his commencement speech to protest Ambar’s support of Mahallati. Angrist declined to respond to a Post query. In an email to the Post, Mahallati denied the allegation of aiding the clerical regime during mass murder in 1988. The Post revealed in 2021 that Mahallati urged a violent global jihad against Israel when he was ambassador to the UN in the late 1980’s. Mahallati also said the UN should not have recognized the state of Israel. The Post reported in May that Mahallati supported the fatwa of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s first Superme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini to murder author Salman Rushdie. Mahallati declined to respond to a Post query about his role in the plot to execute Rushdie. Please Click Here for the article.

BySusannah Johnston May 31, 2022 A group of Iranian-American human rights activists and their allies will be protesting at Oberlin College’s graduation ceremony in Ohio on Sunday, June 5 to draw attention to the alleged complicity of religion professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati in the Iranian regime’s mass killing of Iranian dissidents in the late 1980s. Activists from a recently formed group, Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA), are working to highlight Mahallati’s support for Shia Islamism as well as his continued links to the Tehran government, says organizer Lawdan Bazargan, whose brother Bijan was killed by the Iranian government in 1988. Bazargan said that in addition to seeking justice for her brother, she is protesting for dissidents currently in jail in Iran. “People like Mahallati, with their false message of friendship and peace are the reason this brutal regime has stayed in power for the past 43 years,” she said. Mahallati, who denies being part of a cover up, has been the subject of a number of articles published by the school’s newspaper, the Oberlin Review, since 2020. During the controversy, he has portrayed himself as a promoter of peace and friendship at Oberlin while sitting on the editorial board of an Iranian-based academic journal that has lauded the designated terrorist organization Hezbollah as a legitimate tool of Iranian influence and a force for good in the Middle East. In addition to serving on the board of an academic journal that has promoted Hezbollah, Mahallati has put forth a narrative of Shi’a supremacism and Islamist expansionism in his native Farsi that seems to contradict the message of friendship, peace, and reconciliation he has promoted to Western audiences in English. Mahallati, who became a professor at Oberlin in 2007, began his academic career in the U.S. at Columbia University in 1991 after serving as an Iranian diplomat in the 1980s. Mahallati has also taught at Princeton, Georgetown, and Yale. Three of the five schools he has taught at —Columbia, Georgetown, and Princeton — received funds from the Alavi Foundation, an Iranian charity which was successfully prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice for serving as a front group for the Iranian government in 2017. During his time at Oberlin, Mahallati has cultivated his reputation as a peacemaker through lectures and with the publication of his 2016 book, Ethics of War and Peace in Iran and Shi’i Islam (University of Toronto Press), in which he portrays Iran as ready to extend the hand of friendship and peace with the United States and to accommodate Israel. The violence and cruelty of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and IS in Iraq and Syria, Mahallati wrote, have provided the impetus for Iran to choose “the stance of a staunch supporter of nonviolence, both conceptually and institutionally.” Mahallati appears to promote different attitudes toward the West and the United States while writing in Farsi, however. In 2013, Mahallati penned an article in Farsi for Iranian Diplomacy, a website run by Seyyed Mohammad Sadegh Kharraz, former deputy foreign minister for the regime. A Farsi translator contacted by FWI explained that, in the text, Mahallati argues “the term ‘Judeo-Christian civilization’ is a myth created by America and that this myth “obscures the history of Christian antagonism to Jews and Muslim friendship to Jews.” The translator adds that to Mahallati, “the idea of Western and Islamic civilizations being in conflict is another American myth designed to continue the Cold War with Islam as a substitute for Communism.” According to the translator’s summary, Mahallati asserts that “Iranian culture contains a system of ethics and international law that is superior to the current Western models” and that Islam’s spread in the West was accelerated by 9/11.” Consequently, “the West is now where 7th century AD Iran or the former Byzantine empire was” with “Western culture … merging with the Islamic faith to create a new Western Islamic civilization.” The translator indicates that Mahallati believes “it is extremely important for Iran to promote Shiism in the West so that Western Islam doesn’t fall under the control of [Iran’s] enemies like Saudi Arabia.” Mahallati currently serves on the board of an Iran based journal, Sepehr-e-Siasat, which promotes ideas similar to those expressed in his 2013 article.* For example, the journal recently published an article praising the violent Iranian proxy Hezbollah as “a regional power” that promotes Shiite identity and has taken “important measures to confront the regional domination system and the Zionist regime.” Mohammad Bagher Khoramshad, who serves as the political deputy of the Iranian Ministry of Interior also serves on the editorial board of the journal. Khoramshad’s boss is Ahmad Vahidi, former IRGC Quds Force commander– who is subject to an INTERPOL Red Notice for his alleged role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center that killed 85 people and injured hundreds. Khoramshad is known for backing Islamist reforms at Iranian universities—including preventing women from wearing makeup and requiring the “proper” hijab. Gholam Reza Behrouzlak, another member of Sepehr-e-Siasat’s editorial board, is also the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Islamic Awakening Studies. Behrouzlak has praised Qasem Soleimani, the late commander of the Quds Force of the IRGC, killed in 2020 by U.S. forces, declaring “The blood of the martyr has always been a beacon to Islamic society,” and that “With the martyrdom of Haj Qasem Soleimani, we witnessed the awakening of a national pride and a spirit of Islam and the outpouring of patriotism and people reorienting themselves towards God.” Sunday’s demonstration will be the third protest targeting Mahallati to take place at Oberlin since late 2021. Previous protests highlighted Mahallati’s alleged role in the cover up of a mass killing of dissidents perpetrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1988 while he served as an Iranian diplomat. Mahallati has denied the allegations, stating in October 2020 that he did not know about the killings as they were taking place. In November 2021 he declared, “I was doing my job, delivering the official statements of Iran to the U.N.” during the controversy over the mass killings in Iranian prisons. Oberlin officials and Mahallati himself have not responded to requests for comment. *Update: June 1, 2022: Professor Mahallati’s name has been removed fromContinue reading “Activists to Highlight Oberlin Professor’s Islamism in Graduation Protest”

By Gigi Ewing, Managing Editor May 20, 2022 After a series of international protests, the Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists will return to Oberlin to protest at the class of 2022 Commencement on June 5. The protest will mark the third time that activists have protested the employment of Professor of Religion Mohammad Jafar Mahallati at Oberlin. Mahallati has been accused of covering up crimes against humanity when he served as Iran’s representative to the U.N. in the 1980s. According to Lawdan Bazargan, the protest organizer and sister of a 1988 massacre victim, the upcoming protest will be mobile, unlike the more stationary protests they have previously staged. Protesters have planned a highly visual event to draw attention from audience members at the Commencement. “We want to walk around and hopefully talk to as many people as possible and embarrass the College as much as possible,” Bazargan said. College fourth-year and Iranian-American student Sophie Bernstein expressed hope that the Commencement protest will attract broader support than the last demonstration, which only drew a small crowd. “I hope that because it’s Commencement, people who aren’t students will pay attention,” Bernstein said. “I think Oberlin College has failed these protestors in a lot of ways. I hope that a broader audience at Commencement would be more sympathetic than people have up until this point.” Bernstein specifically noted the lack of student response to the protest movement. “There has been a lot of pushback to talk about Professor Mahallati, especially because he’s tenured and he still works here,” Bernstein said. “I think it is concerning when there are such severe allegations against someone, people are not willing to have a conversation … especially because [the protesters] keep coming back — it’s not like the issue is over for the people that are affected. Oberlin prides itself on being a school that’s centered around social justice, but there are people seeking justice and their calls are not being answered.” Since May 12, the AAIRIA has rallied members in the United States and internationally to protest Mahallati’s continued employment at the College. Groups will continue protesting in a few other U.S. cities before culminating their movement at Oberlin early next month.  The group chose locations to target specific individuals, from Board of Trustees members Amy Chen and Chris Canavan to various offices of Greenberg Traurig, the law firm representing Mahallati. Notably, Canavan will also speak at the Commencement. Canavan declined the Review’s request for comment. Bazargan also commented on a recently resurfaced 1989 Reuters article in which Mahallati defended the  fatwā issued against Salman Rushdie after the publication of his novel, Satanic Verses. Although unsurprised that Mahallati supported the fatwā, as his position required that he defend the theocratic regime’s dictates, Bazargan expressed shock that the College continued to employ Mahallati.  “He had said back then that if Westerners believe in freedom of speech — this is our freedom of speech,” Bazargan said. “Can you believe it? Putting a bounty on the head of somebody is freedom of speech — and this guy teaches ethics and morality to you guys.” At the time, Mahallati defended the fatwā by arguing that other Islamic countries supported Iran’s stance toward Rushdie. “I think that if Western countries really believe [in] and respect freedom of speech, therefore they should also respect our freedom of speech,” Mahallati told Reuters. “We certainly use that right in order [to] express ourselves, our religious beliefs, in the case of any blasphemous statement against sacred Islamic figures.” Bazargan also responded to accusations that her protest movement peddles Islamophobia and aligns with pro-Trump politicians.  “We are none of that,” she said. “We are just victims of an Islamic regime, and that’s what we are talking about.” Although the College has yet to formally address the protests, Bazargan’s commitment has not diminished.  “We are also going after politicians — we have started [reaching out to] some contacts and we are asking some citizens of Cleveland to contact and talk to them,” Bazargan said. “We are trying to organize some other pressures coming directly from the government. But for sure we won’t let this go because it is not acceptable that somebody who was involved in such atrocity continues teaching students.” As they reflected on the Oberlin community’s response to the Mahallati issue toward the end of their College career, Bernstein described a lack of understanding and compassion for the protesters. They expressed hope that the coming protest would change the tides in the community’s acknowledgement of the allegations against Mahallati.  “I really hope that there’s more attention to this protest,” Bernstein said. “I hope there’s more flyers or publicity or conversations on social media. I don’t know what it will take to get people to care, but the people that are protesting are in mourning for a very real issue. At the very least some support would be awesome.” Please Click Here for the article.

By Isabel Vincent and Jon Levine May 12, 2022 | 9:01am Oberlin College professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati says he’s devoted to creating a peaceful world and forging a greater understanding between Muslims and Christians. But activists slam the so-called “Professor of Peace” and former diplomat for allegedly helping the Iranian government cover up the massacre of thousands of jailed political opponents in 1988, allegedly ordered by then-leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Relatives of the dead dissidents are demanding that Oberlin, a liberal arts college 30 miles southwest of Cleveland, fire Mahallati, 70, a professor of religion and a Presidential Scholar in Islamic studies who also has taught at Columbia, Georgetown and Princeton. “We believe … that his [Mahallati’s] role was to obfuscate and lie to the international community about mass crimes perpetrated by the Iranian regime,” said a group that reps 600 victims in a letter to Oberlin president Carmen Twillie Ambar in 2020 — part of a two-year campaign to oust the prof, who has worked at the college since 2007. Between 5,000 and 30,000 opponents of the regime were slaughtered during the summer of 1988, then buried in mass graves at secret locations, according to human rights groups. Critics charge that Mahallati aided the Khomeni government by denying the executions, which Amnesty International said were part of “ongoing crimes against humanity.” The group demanded a formal UN investigation in 2018, and also issued dozens of urgent appeals in the days after the massacre. Representatives of 50 international UN-affiliated nonprofits have also demanded that the school conduct “an immediate and impartial investigation into [Mahallati’s] continued employment.” Mahallati, who served as Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations from 1987 to 1989, was among a list of Iranian officials who said the killings never happened, Amnesty said. In 1988, in a statement to the UN, he said reports of the mass murders were “misinformation” and a year later called them “political propaganda against the Islamic Republic.” Victim Bijan Bazargan, a 28-year-old leftist dissident serving a 10-year-sentence, was condemned without a trial or any chance to defend himself, his sister, Lawdan Bazargan, told The Post. His family was sent only a duffel bag with a wristwatch, shirt and a death certificate, according to the New York Times. “When my father asked the prison officials to give him Bijan’s body, they said, ‘He was an apostate and has no place in this world,’” said Bazargan in an interview from Sweden. She’s there attending the trial of Hamid Nouri, a 61-year-old former Iranian prison official accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the 1988 executions. Swedish authorities arrested Nouri in 2019 while he was visiting relatives. Bazargan’s twin sister, Laleh, who lives in Sweden, has testified in the trial, she said. A verdict is expected shortly. “I am envious of my twin sister that the country she lives in arrests and puts on trial a criminal such as Nouri, but the United States rewards people such as Mahallati by giving them teaching positions to brainwash young minds,” Bazargan said.  Mahallati has denied what he called “unfounded accusations” against him, and issued a formal statement that Oberlin College posted on its website last year. “The official positions I formally took at the United Nations during the time I served do not portray my personal views,” the Oct. 28, 2021, statement reads. “My personal views are well portrayed in all my published books, articles, and teachings during the last 30 years since I left the U.N. post. It is important to note that my accusers have not found a single statement from me that is remotely consistent with their unfounded accusations.” A statement from his lawyer, who is not identified, is also on the Oberlin website, saying, “Professor Mahallati, who was in New York, had no knowledge in real time about the covert executions nor did he attempt to conceal the facts once they were revealed.” Oberlin officials said they conducted an internal investigation and are satisfied that Mahallati did nothing wrong. “After consulting a number of sources, and evaluating the public record, the College could find no evidence to corroborate the allegations against Professor Mahallati, including that he had specific knowledge of the murders taking place in Iran,” Oberlin’s statement reads. Since coming to Oberlin in 2007, “Professor Mahallati has developed a reputation as a scholar and a teacher for espousing religious tolerance and seeking peace and understanding between all people.” Mahallati also supported the Palestinian intifada of 1989 and publicly backed his government after Iran issued a fatwa for the death of British novelist Salman Rushdie following the publication of his 1988 book “The Satanic Verses.” Rushdie remained in hiding for nine years as ultra-conservative clerics and state media outlets in Iran raised the bounty on him to $4 million. Last year, Columbia scrubbed Mahallati from its website after a Post reporter began to ask questions about the professor. Mahallati, who previously taught international relations at the school between 1991 and 1997, was listed as the Mahdi Visiting Research Professor for the spring 2021 semester. At the time, a spokesman for Columbia told The Post, “there are no arrangements in place for him to come to our university as a visiting research fellow.” Please Click Here for the article.

Tehran is guilty of gross human rights violations, ignoring UN Security Council resolutions and violating nearly every one of its obligations to restrain its nuclear program. By MARK D. WALLACE Published: MAY 8, 2022 21:23 The Biden administration is on the precipice of approving another disastrous deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran. It will reportedly relieve pressure on Iranian terrorist organizations and provide hundreds of billions of dollars to a regime allied with Russia and China. Tehran is guilty of gross human rights violations, ignoring UN Security Council resolutions and violating nearly every one of its obligations to restrain its nuclear program. This should be cause for great concern, but in higher education, it is likely to be met with a shrug of the shoulders if not outright applause. Leading universities like Princeton University and Oberlin College in Ohio have for too long chosen to cast their lot with the Iranian regime, not the United States and its democratic allies. Iranian government agents are members of the faculty at both institutions. Princeton must cut ties with Iranian Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Oberlin with Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Jafar Mahallati. They represent the brutal Iranian establishment and hide behind calls for diplomacy and peace to mask their bloodstained records. It is shameful that both schools are standing by their side instead of prioritizing student safety and upholding their moral obligations to protect against infiltration by agents of hostile foreign powers. Despite mounting public pressure, as members of the faculty, they are protected by their brethren, no matter their offenses. This must stop. Just one member of US academia publicly mourned and attended the funeral of a slain terrorist leader, Qasem Soleimani, in 2020 – Mousavian.  Soleimani was the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization responsible for hundreds of US casualties in Iraq. Mousavian followed that with an outrageous justification for taking hostages as leverage to win financial concessions from the West, and an interview for an Iranian propaganda film glorifying Soleimani’s actions and reveling in Iranian death threats against American diplomats and their families. Nevertheless, Princeton has stood by him. This is perhaps unsurprising given Princeton’s disinterest in Mousavian’s history in the assassination of dissidents. While serving as his country’s envoy to Germany in the 1990s, a German court found that Iranian agents organized themselves at Iran’s embassy, at the time headed by Mousavian, before assassinating these individuals in a restaurant. AS FOR Mahallati, before joining Oberlin’s faculty in 2007, he served the Iranian regime as its ambassador to the United Nations (UN). He is accused of engaging in the cover-up of Iran’s mass execution of more than 5,000 political prisoners in the late-1980s, repeatably denying that such atrocities were taking place while ambassador. Furthermore, even after evidence of the murders have come to light, Mahallati has not amended his position, demonstrating his allegiance firmly lays with the Iranian regime. Mahallati has also peddled in antisemitic and anti-Baha’i rhetoric. At the UN, he made speeches encouraging violence against Jews, now as a professor of religion, Oberlin has stood by him allowing him to give lectures to their students, the future minds of America. Amid rising criticism, both institutions have provided weak justifications for not cutting ties with the men in question. Princeton has fallen back on its adoption of the Chicago Principles, a nonbinding document steeped in the traditions of classical liberalism and authored by academics that value civil discourse, using it to justify taunts of US officials and their families as free speech. And in Ohio, despite Mahallati being indicted by Amnesty International for supporting a cover-up of crimes against humanity, Oberlin has continued to take the stance that there is no evidence Mahallati knew about the murders – confusing lack of evidence for the denial of the truth. The line at which a member of the faculty has engaged in disqualifying behavior is clearly moving in the wrong direction. In the new paradigm, being a mouthpiece for a regime that fully endorses the call of “Death to America” is acceptable. Being complicit in the cover-up of mass political executions is acceptable. Religious bigotry is acceptable. Joining in a celebration of the life of a terrorist leader accused by the commander-in-chief of wounding or killing thousands of Americans is acceptable. Finding happiness in threats made against Americans is acceptable. It begs the question: what obscene behaviors are unacceptable? Perhaps officials at Princeton and Oberlin are content to absorb the risks, the reputational damage and the rising wave of criticism, but they have not yet been truly tested and have not had to take responsibility for enabling the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. The Biden administration should suspend all grants and contracts with those institutions for working with a regime that flagrantly violates all conventions of human rights. Congress and local governments should exercise oversight. Financial supporters from the largest foundations to individual donors should suspend or terminate their giving to institutions that host regime mouthpieces, as they are exposing themselves to great reputational risk. Students that would never tolerate their tuition dollars going toward paychecks for former North Korean or Taliban ambassadors should speak up against terrorist enablers and participants in a conspiracy to obscure gross human rights abuses. For Princeton and Oberlin, their path forwards are clear: they can continue to associate themselves with Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, or they can immediately terminate ties with Mousavian and Mahallati. The choice is simple. The writer is CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and is a former US ambassador to the United Nations for management and reform. Please Click Here for the article.