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‘It employs a man with blood on his hands while serving for the largest terror sponsoring government’  By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL Published: APRIL 15, 2022 13:51 Charlie Weimers, a prominent Swedish member of the European parliament demanded on Thursday that the Ohio-based Oberlin College summarily fire its professor, Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, for his alleged role in covering up the mass murder of at least 5,000 innocent Iranian prisoners during the summer of 1988 in Iran. When asked by the Post if Oberlin College’s president Carmen Twillie Ambar should dismiss Mahallati, Weimers told The Jerusalem Post: “Absolutely! Not today or tomorrow, it should have been yesterday.” He added: “Any person serving for the world’s largest terror sponsoring regime should be sanctioned, especially those at the top and those who seek to cover up the crimes against humanity by that regime, like Mr. Mahallati.” The United States, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, have classified Iran’s regime as the top international state-sponsor of terrorism. Ambar has refused to meet with the families of the victims of 1988 massacre.  Weimers told the Post that “it is an absolute disgrace that Oberlin College President Ambar refuses to meet with the families of over 5,000 innocent victims of crimes against humanity. “For a college that states that it seeks a ‘respectful exchange of ideas and shares an enduring commitment to a sustainable and just society,’ the last thing one would expect is  that it employs a man with blood on his hands while serving for the largest terror sponsoring government in the world and that its President snubs victims and their families of that terrorist regime, who seek to ensure a just society.” Weimers is widely regarded as one of the leading champions within the European Parliament of the victims of the theocratic state in Tehran, Iranian dissidents and for the promotion of Iranian democracy and civil rights. The Swedish lawmaker said: “President Ambar must choose to stand on the right side of history, otherwise her position and that of her college are an absolute disgrace and a slap in the face to all victims of cruel, terrorist and immoral regimes.” Mahallati denied to the Post in 2020 that he covered up the mass murder in 1988 However, Amnesty International issued a highly detailed report in 2018, determining that Mahallati played a key role in covering up the 1988  massacre while serving as the Iranian regime’s ambassador to the UN. Raising the stakes Weimer’s entry into the row over Mahallati has raised the stakes for Oberlin College, as he is the first major politician to weigh in on Mahallati and has now turned the intense dispute over Mahallati’s employment into a wider global controversy. The 1988 massacre is currently front-and-center in the Swedish judiciary. Former Iranian judicial official Hamid Noury is currently on trial in Sweden for war crimes and for murder in connection with his alleged role in the mass execution of Iranian political prisoners in 1988 in Iran. Noury is on trial in Stockholm  for the mass murder of 136 Iranians in Gohardasht prison in Karaj, near Tehran, while he allegedly worked as an assistant to the deputy prosecutor. The Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA) announced a protest against Mahallati and Ambar during the first week of June at Oberlin during the graduation ceremony week. The Post has learned that the AAIRIA plans protests against multiple businesses of Oberlin College trustees, including the global  law firm Greenberg Traurig Oberlin College trustee Charles S. Birenbaum, who is a shareholder of the Greenberg Traurig where he serves as its chair of its northern California branch, declined to respond to multiple Post queries on the matter.  When asked about Greenberg Traurig’s legal representation of Mahallati, Jill Perry, the managing director and  chief marketing officer of Greenberg Traurig, told the Post: “We are in receipt of your message. Our firm never represented Oberlin College in the investigation or otherwise on the matter, and whomever advised you of this is incorrect.” The Post asked Greenberg Traurig: How much did Oberlin College pay your law firm to represent Mr. Mahallati? Or was the legal work done pro bono? When the Post pressed Perry about a factsheet on Oberlin College’s website that states Greenberg Traurig’s Gregory W. Kehoe represents Mahallati, Perry said: ”As we told you, our firm did not represent Oberlin College in the investigation or otherwise on this matter. We cannot comment of the specifics of any client representation, but one of our lawyers did briefly represent the Professor in late 2020. He is no longer a client of our firm. We will look into what Oberlin College may have put into its website; but we will not have or make further comment for your story.” After the Post queries, Oberlin College scrubbed Greenberg Traurig and Kehoe’s names from its factsheet. The only reference to legal representation is the statement “ From the attorney” with respect to the document that claims to exonerate Mahallati of the allegations he was complicit in a cover up of crimes against humanity, his documented calls to abolish Israel and promote jihadi violence against the Jewish state, and his role in the incitement of persecution against the Baha’i community in Iran. The Post secured a screenshot of the original factsheet that lists Greenberg Traurig and Kehoe as Mahallati’s legal representation. Perry declined to answer if there is a conflict of interest. In a November, 2021, Jason Hawk, a journalist for the Chronicle-Telegram in Oberlin, reported that Mahallati’s “lawyer, Gregory Kehoe of the firm Greenberg Traurig, said criticisms leveled against Mahallati are ‘completely unjustified.”’ When the Post asked Oberlin College spokesman Scott Wargo about Greenberg Traurig, Wargo said: “The College has prepared a fact sheet about Professor Mahallati that also includes a statement from the College… The College doesn’t have any further comment.”  It is unclear why Oberlin College wiped Greenberg Traurig and Kehoe off its factsheet.  The AAIRIA plans to protest at the businesses and employment locations of Oberlin College trustees, Amy Chen Chief Investment Officer, Office of Investments at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.; Chris Canavan, from Lion’s Head Global Partners; Chesley Maddox-Dorsey, Chief Executive Officer at AmericanContinue reading “EU politician urges Oberlin College to fire Iran regime ‘criminal’”

By Jason Hawk The Chronicle-Telegram Apr 09, 2022 5:00 AM OBERLIN — A protest group that has repeatedly called for the termination of an Islamic studies professor at Oberlin College is now backing a push for increased compensation for the institution’s employees. Asking for raises and a better medical insurance plan, professors and students have rallied in recent months. They’ve leveled accusations of mismanagement against the college, and have branded board of trustees members as hypocrites for their treatment of union of employees while sitting on a $1 billion endowment. Joining the fray is the Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists, which sent a letter to the college last week backing “better work conditions, health benefits and adequate remuneration” for Oberlin faculty and staff. The group of alumni, human rights activists and Iranian-Americans has demanded since October 2020 that the college fire religion professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati. He was Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in the 1980s during the state-sanctioned execution of untold thousands of political prisoners. At question is whether Mahallati was aware of and helped cover up evidence of the killings. Amnesty International lists Mahallati among those the organization claims “were actively involved in denying the mass killings in media interviews and exchanges with the U.N. to shield those responsible from accountability.” Oberlin College claims it reviewed a 2018 Amnesty International report in which accusations were leveled against Mahallati and engaged professional investigators to evaluate what role he may have played. Mahallati denies the allegations, and the college said its inquiry didn’t find proof to corroborate them. The college has not bowed to the Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists’ demands despite repeated protests. Another is being planned for June 5. “We have requested that the college initiate a transparent and independent investigation into professor Mahallati’s cover-up of the 1988 prison massacres,” said a release provided by activist Lawdan Bazargan. “All our calls have remained unanswered; all the documents we submitted to corroborate Mahallati’s role have been ignored. Our repeated demands for justice and accountability have been dismissed.” The group said Oberlin College has failed to live up to its ideals of fighting for social justice and defending human rights. Scott Wargo, director of media relations for the college, did not provide any new comment. Contact Jason Hawk at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com. Please Click Here for the article.

‘Celebrating 43 years of resistance against the gender apartheid Islamic regime of Iran’ By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL Published: MARCH 9, 2022 09:48 Updated: MARCH 9, 2022 09:56 Iranian-Americans, college students and community members assembled in the town of Oberlin, Ohio on Saturday to protest against the gender apartheid policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the alleged role of an Oberlin College professor in the cover-up of a massacre of 5,000 Iranians in 1988. “Celebrating 43 Years of Iranian Women[‘s] Resistance Against the Gender Apartheid Islamic Regime of Iran,” read one sign held by Lawdan Bazargan, the lead organizer of the demonstration. The demonstration was held ahead of International Women’s Day, marked on March 8. Bazargan told The Jerusalem Post about the dire plight of a number of incarcerated Iranian women spotlighted at the protest. She cited the case of “Maryam Akbari Monfared, who was born in 1975, and three of her brothers and a sister were executed in the 1980s or in the 1988 massacre. As an adult woman, when she demanded an answer about why they were executed, she was put in jail. She was arrested in 2009 and was sentenced to 15 years. Her children grew up without her.”  A second case involves “ Saba Kord Afshari, a 20-year-old girl who protested against compulsory [wearing of the] hijab, who was sentenced to 27 years in jail on the charges of ‘promoting corruption and prostitution through appearing without a headscarf in public,’ and on the charge of ‘propaganda against the state,’ and on the charge of ‘assembly and collusion with an intent to commit a crime against national security.’ Later Afshari’s mother was arrested too because she spoke up demanding her daughter’s release,” Bazargan said. The activists want Oberlin College President Carmen Ambar to fire Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, a professor of religion and Tehran’s former ambassador to the UN, for his reported role in the mass murder of Iranian dissidents. According to a 2018 Amnesty International report, Mahallati engaged, as Iran’s ambassador to the UN, in “crimes against humanity” by aiding the clerical regime in the killing spree conducted throughout the state’s prisons. Thousands of male and female prisoners were summarily slaughtered during the summer of 1988. Bazargan said at the protest that Mahallati should not be allowed to “teach ethics and peace” due to the grave allegation of “crimes against humanity” leveled against him. “We want justice and accountability,” she said, adding that new research showed that Mahallati declared, in a 1981 interview, that the persecuted Bahaʼi religion should not exist. Bazargan, whose brother Bijan was murdered by the Iranian regime in 1988 for his leftist views, announced, in a statement directed to Ambar: “Rest assured, we are coming back in June for the graduation” ceremony at the college. Roughly 75 Iranian-Americans and human rights activists protested against Mahallati in November. The activities against Mahallati have morphed into a global campaign that has unified the entire spectrum of Iranian dissident organizations and parties. A group of 15 people showed up on Saturday. Iranian-Americans are outraged at Ambar’s refusal to meet with the families of the 1988 victims. Post interviews with the protesters and activists involved in the campaign against Mahallati revealed a consensus among Iranian-Americans that the Oberlin College administration and its board of trustees do not value Iranian lives. Mahallati denied that he committed crimes against humanity, in a statement to the Post in October 2020 Oberlin College spokesman Scott Wargo sent the Post a fact sheet about Mahallati that appears on the school’s website. He added that “The college doesn’t have any further comment.” The Post previously reported on the fact sheet.  “Caution: Accomplice to Massacre Teaches at this College,” a sign held by Marjan Ghadrdan at the protest read. A third poster declared, “Four Decades of Resistance against Forced Hijab.” The Iranian regime requires women to cover their hair with a scarf, and if they refuse, they are subject to incarceration. According to an article by Dave O’Brien in the local paper, The Chronicle-Telegram, additional posters at the protest read, “Ask Mahallati Why he Lied,” “Ask Mahallati Why He Denied” and “Mahallati Represented a Murderous Regime with No Respect for Human Lives and Human Rights.” The Oberlin Committee for Justice for Mahallati’s Victims issued a statement ahead of Saturday’s protest: “To our dismay, the Board [of Trustees] decided to ignore our letter and Oberlin Review’s Editorial Board’s assessment that ‘Evidence against Mahallati was irrefutable.’ In addition, documents show that Mahallati stoked incitement against the people of the Baha’i faith and delivered antisemitic speeches against Israel and the Jewish people at the UN.” The statement continued, “We are taking the fight to the Board of Trustees of Oberlin College, including the chair, Chris Canavan, vice-chair Chelsey Maddox-Dorsey, and Amy Chen, the first chief investment officer at the Smithsonian Institution. We believe the continuation of employment of Mr. Mahallati violates Oberlin College’s historical stance on inclusion, respect, and tolerance.” The Committee for Justice added, “We are heartened by the outpouring of support from the Oberlin community that prides itself on pursuing justice. Oberlin’s Board should assume the same principled stance in support of the victims’ families rather than tarnish the university’s reputation” Their reputation is “rightfully damaged with each day that its leadership denies accountability. Prospective students and donors are watching whether the school’s Board of Trustees will act with integrity and oust Mohammad Jafar Mahallati.” The Committee added. Bazargan slammed Oberlin town councilman Ray English, a former director of libraries for Oberlin College, saying he had launched a campaign to discredit Iranian-Americans and advance the goals of the Tehran regime. “Ray English should be embarrassed to be using the same propaganda as the Islamic Republic,” she said. “We will not listen to his smear campaign. He should come to join with the victims of Mahallati.” Bazargan said English is “racist, xenophobic and antisemitic” because of a controversial memorandum he circulated dated February 17 and titled “The Jafar Mahallati Controversy: A Tentative Assessment.” The 10-page document, a copy of which was obtained by the Post, claims “Conservative elements withinContinue reading “International Women’s Day protest against Iran’s regime and ex-UN envoy Mahallati”

Please Click Here for the article. Undoubtedly, you have not heard of me. I am just one of hundreds of thousands of Iranian citizens who were forced by the terrorist regime under Ruhollah Khomeni and Ali Khameni to leave their beloved homeland in the past decades. Unlike you, I don’t get to study at one of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the U.S. I live a much simpler life in a developing country in Latin America: the only place I could run away to after the Iranian regime began to investigate my political cartoons and activities. While you know nothing of me, I and many other young people from Iran have heard all about your college. Specifically, we have been shocked to hear you employ a former Iranian regime diplomat, Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, as a professor of Religion and Islamic Studies. We have been stunned to hear that this official is involved with interdisciplinary courses in the field of “friendship and forgiveness studies.” Much of the debate about Professor Mahallati’s position at your college seems to focus on the question of whether he knew about certain mass executions of dissidents by the regime, and whether, as an Iranian diplomat at the United Nations, he knowingly misled the world about them. But debating this question is a waste of time. We will never know whether Professor Mahallati knew about the specific crimes committed by the regime, and was periodically parroting the denialist propaganda coming from his superiors in Tehran merely as a part of his job, or whether he really believed what he was saying, unaware of his colleagues’ crimes. Let’s look at it in the light most favorable to him: that he didn’t know about these massacres, and that he presented Tehran’s excuses and denials at the U.N. with sincerity and credulity. The point here is not what exactly Professor Mahallati did, said, or believed while employed by the terrorist regime in Tehran. The point is that he voluntarily worked for this regime as an international representative and diplomat. People like him — soft-spoken, well-mannered, bureaucratic drones — are exactly the reason why the regime apparatus exists, and why it continues to oppress my people. Individually, such people do nothing of note. In fact, they might well be incapable of killing a fly, let alone planning a crime. Together, as part of the bureaucratic apparatus working for the usurper’s regime in Tehran, such people are the trivial face of unspeakable evil. They are the cogs and bolts in the apparatus of a regime that represents true depravity and sadism like almost no other. Islam does not know national chauvinism. But the regime viciously promotes Persian language and toxic Persian ethnic supremacism at the cost of the many other Indigenous peoples of Iran, their languages, or cultures: Baluchs, Arabs, Armenians, Lurs, Jews, Georgians, Kurds, Turkmen, Azerbaijanis, and many others. One of the very first acts of the so-called “Islamic Republic” in 1979 was ethnocidal mass murder against rebellious Kurds; countless other non-Persian Indigenous ethnic groups have been targeted since then by discrimination, land theft, and forced assimilation. Shia Islamic thought emphasizes social justice and compassion, but the regime emphasizes social-Darwinist capitalism with no limits. The rich live in huge villas filled with the latest imported luxury goods, while the poor literally starve. The regime consciously chooses to spend the money on terrorism, bombs, and war, rather than on helping Iranian citizens put bread on the table. This is the reality of the regime Professor Mahallati chose to work for. I do not wish to tell you to sack Professor Mahallati. America has academic freedom, and this principle is more valuable than a trivial villain like Professor Mahallati. Instead, I ask your students to stand up for the less privileged; for those who were murdered, tortured or robbed of their home by the regime which Professor Mahallati worked for. Raise your voice for them. Every time you attend a class with this professor, bring one of the flags of the oppressed Indigenous peoples of Iran to class and stick it to your desk. Fly the free colors of Kurdistan, of South Azerbaijan, of Balochistan, of Turkmen Sahra, of Arab Ahwaz, and all the other cultures and identities the tyrants in Tehran are trying to destroy and assimilate into oblivion. Wear a t-shirt with a photo of a dissenter murdered by the regime, like Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, who was killed in 1989 by regime agents in the conference room while trying to negotiate peace. If there is an empty chair in your classroom, dedicate it to all the young, poor men in Balochistan who won’t be able to sit in any university classroom because they have been hanged by the racist regime on false drug charges, scapegoats to hide the fact that the regime’s so-called “revolutionary guards” are the biggest narco-mafia in Middle Eastern history. Make sure Professor Mahallati sees the reality of the regime every day, so he cannot hide behind ignorance about what system he served in his own past role. The classroom should not be a venue for the ex-servants of tyranny to posture as intellectuals. If you want real education at your college, turn the tables, use your right to non-violent dissent. Give Professor Mahallati a peaceful but vivid lesson in what freedom and democracy really mean.

Please Click Here for the article. This story has been updated with a response from Oberlin College. OBERLIN — Critics of an Oberlin College professor they claim is a human-rights abuser publicly protested his continued employment at the college Saturday. About a dozen protesters held and waved signs at the southeast corner of Tappan Square in downtown Oberlin, calling for a transparent investigation into professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati. “Ask Mahallati why he lied,” read one of the signs. “Ask Mahallati why he denied.” “Mahallati represented a murderous regime with no respect for human lives and human rights,” read another. Mahallati is the Nancy Schrom Dye Chair in Middle East and North African Studies at Oberlin College, where he has taught since 2007. From 1987 to 1989 he was Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, partially during the Iran-Iraq war. Mahallati has said he was working on the peace process when the war ended in 1988, but critics say he was involved in the state-sponsored execution of thousands of political and religious prisoners by the Iranian regime. In October 2020, a letter signed by more than 600 people was sent to college President Carmen Twillie Ambar accusing Mahallati of covering up crimes against humanity and calling for him to be fired. Lawdan Bazargan, whose brother Bijan was arrested and killed by the Iranian regime, said Saturday that Oberlin College is continuing to protect a professor she said committed crimes against humanity. Mahallati knew for years of Iran’s persecution of political opponents and religious minorities such as the Baha’is and covered it up, said Bazargan, who said she spent 100 days in solitary confinement in Iran when she was 16 after speaking out against the Iran-Iraq war and more time on probation afterward, unable to leave the country or attend school. She and other protesters passed out flyers Saturday urging Oberlin College students to boycott Mahallati’s classes, to ask Ambar to meet with victims’ families, and to contact the college board of trustees and ask them to take action. Bazargan said rumors that protesters are “anti-Islamic” and funded by right-wing or pro-Israel factions are untrue. His critics are doctors, Ph.D.s and engineers who were persecuted or lost family under the Iranian regime, she said. The college is so closely connected to the city financially and socially that other academics, college alumni and former college employees are afraid to speak out publicly against Mahallati, Bazargan said. “History is hidden because of people like Mahallati,” she said. That he has continued to be allowed to teach students means “he’s raised a new generation of apologists for the regime of Iran.” In late 2021, Mahallati released a statement in which he said his accusers “have not found a single statement from me that is remotely consistent with their unfounded accusations” and that he believes in religious freedom for all. The college’s website includes a response to the allegations at bit.ly/3vLNBGq describing the results of the investigation into the claims made by Mahallati’s critics. Oberlin College spokesman Scott Wargo said the college had no comment on Saturday’s protest, and pointed a reporter to the online fact sheet. Contact Dave O’Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @daveobrienCT.

We, a group of families of executed political prisoners in Iran, Oberlin College students, alumni, and human rights activists, will protest for the second time at Oberlin to urge Oberlin’s Board of Trustees to order school officials to investigate the reported crimes against humanity conducted by the College tenured Professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati and oust him. The protest celebrates International Women’s Day and will be held on Saturday, March 5, 2022, from 12 to 2 PM EST at the corner of College Street & Main Street, Oberlin, Ohio.    After more than a year of advocacy, extensive media coverage, interviews by family members of victims of the 1988 Massacre and independent experts, and most importantly, a large protest on campus attended by many students and concerned citizens on November 2, 2021, President Ambar and the Oberlin administration has failed to transparently address the issues we outlined in our initial letter or engage in any constructive forms with the families of victims.  Thus, on December 28, 2021, we turned to the Oberlin College Board of Trustees (Board), made them aware of the injustice of having a professor on staff who reportedly was complicit in the massacre of 5000 innocent Iranian citizens, and sought their assistance in implementing transparency and accountability. We were hopeful that the Board would put the College’s values above any politics because of a precedent when they intervened in Joy Karega‘sscandal and rightfully removed her from her position. We expected the Board would take seriously Amnesty International’s report Blood-Soaked Secrets: Why Iran’s 1988 Prison Massacres Are Ongoing Crimes Against Humanity and the assessment of Amnesty’s Senior Research Adviser, seriously enough that “All former and current officials who continue to treat the mass killings as state secrets effectively stand with those who have blood on their hands.”  To our dismay, the Board decided to ignore our letter and  Oberlin Review’s Editorial Board’s assessment that “Evidence against Mahallati was irrefutable.” In addition, documents show that Mahallati stoked incitement against the people of the Baha’i faith and delivered Anti-Semitic speeches against Israel and Jewish people at the UN. Thus, we are taking the fight to the Board of Trustees of Oberlin College, including the chair, Chris Canavan, vice-chair Chelsey Maddox-Dorsey, and Amy Chen, the first chief investment officer at the Smithsonian Institution. We believe the continuation of employment of Mr. Mahallati violates Oberlin College’s historical stance on inclusion, respect, and tolerance. We are heartened by the outpouring of support from the Oberlin Community that prides itself on pursuing justice. Oberlin’s Board should assume the same principled stance in support of the victims’ families rather than tarnish the university’s reputation, which is rightfully damaged with each day that its leadership denies accountability. Prospective students and donors are watching whether the school’s Board of Trustees will act with integrity and oust Mohammad Jafar Mahallati.  Committee for Justice for Mahallati’s Victims  Contact: Lawdan Bazargan: Tel: 562-212-9546  Email: JusticeforMahallatiVictims@gmail.com  Due to COVID travel restrictions, we will stream the event on ZOOM so our supporters can join virtually and support us. https://fullerton.zoom.us/j/81343490252 QUOTES: Lawdan Bazargan (Human Rights Activist) “For the past 43 years the gender-Apartheid regime of Iran has discriminated against women, diminished their value to half of a man, promoted polygamy, excluded women from the leadership and public sphere, and ignored their basic human rights. People like Mahallati are the propaganda machine of this brutal regime and normalize these crimes and hide the true nature of this oppressive regime. Protecting Mahallati and ignoring the families of the victims of Mahallati proves lack of leadership and shameful failure of the administration.” Kaveh Shahrooz (College Professor and Human Rights Lawyer): “The Oberlin administration has refused to conduct a fair and transparent investigation of a man we believe was responsible for hiding crimes against humanity from the world. For that reason, we will continue to demand justice by every legal means possible.” Dr. Farangiss Bayat (Political Theorist and Security Analyst) “The prestigious University of Oberlin should be the promoter of liberal values in the name and manner. The continued employment of notorious figures such as Mahallati mocks the credibility of the Oberlin College and these values. Resisting the expulsion of Mahallati is resistance to the true values that young men and women must learn at this university. Firing Mahallati is protecting our children and our society.” Mariam Memarsadeghi (Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute): “The Islamic Republic is, like the Taliban and ISIS, a state founded on an ideology of women’s inequality. Every day for the last 43 years, Iranian girls and women have endured the legalized humiliations of segregation, control over their dress and movement, exclusion from all manner of opportunities, the lack of basic rights in the family and society, and state-sanctioned violence. Also, during the last 43 years, Iranian girls and women have been abandoned by the West’s feminists. Progressive institutions like Oberlin College protect the abusers of Iranian women’s rights rather than shame them.” Dr. Reza Parchizadeh (Political Theorist and Security Analyst): “Mohammad Jafar Mahallati is just one member of the Islamic Republic’s vast network of influence in American universities, aimed at normalizing the regime’s crimes in the American public mind and gaining concessions from the US government. Negotiations to revive the Defective Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are underway in Vienna at a sensitive time like now. Therefore, the issue of Mahallati is not only the issue of Iranians who themselves or their family members have fallen victim to this person and his behavior in Iran. The Islamic Republic’s academic influence network is a security threat to the United States, and it must be dealt with accordingly.” Hassan Dai (Researcher and Political Activist): “It is stunning that some former high-ranking Iranian officials are welcomed into the US and recycled as scholars in the most prestigious universities. As diplomats, they had represented a barbaric regime that not only has the most horrific record of human rights violations but has also been considered by consecutive US administrations as the main sponsor of terrorism in the world. Some, like Mahallati, were actively involved in covering up the Iranian regime’s crimes against humanity. Ironically, these former officials present themselves as the new ambassadors for peace between the US and Iran. At the same time, they are field commanders for running the mullahs’ lobby machinery and misinformation campaign in the US.”

Geoffrey Robertson human rights barrister, academic, author, and broadcaster talks about the 1988 Massacre of the Political Prisoners in Iran and the role of people like Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, the Islamic Regime of Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations played in concealing and denying this crime against humanity

Please Click Here for the article. Following the publication of its damning report on a three-decade-long campaign of misinformation by the Iranian authorities about the mass prisoner killings of 1988, Amnesty International today published a video interview from December 1988 showing Iran’s then prime minister, Mir Hossein Mousavi, denying and distorting the truth about these crimes against humanity. The video clip has been released in response to a public debate ignited since the report’s publication about the extent to which Mir Hossein Mousavi and his government were aware of the mass killings while they were taking place between late July and early September 1988, and his role in the official campaign to conceal the truth about what happened. In the interview, first broadcast by the Austrian national public service broadcaster, ORF, on 13 December 1988, Mir Hossein Mousavi is asked about the executions. He responds saying, “We repressed them”, without explaining what he is acknowledging, and avoids any explicit reference to the mass killings. Instead, he focuses on criticizing the July 1988 armed incursion by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), an opposition group based in Iraq at the time, in an apparent effort to misrepresent the executions as a legitimate response to an armed attack. To view the interview please click here. This video clip is not for distribution, archive or resale. Please contact ORF to license this footage.  “Mir Hossein Mousavi’s interview with the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, ORF, shows that, in late 1988, he unashamedly propagated the same false narrative, used by other Iranian authorities for decades, to hide the truth that they had forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed at least 5,000 political dissidents as part of a systematic effort to eliminate political opposition,” said Philip Luther, Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International. For years Iranian officials at all levels have sought to deflect attention away from the mass prisoner killings by focusing on the armed incursion of the PMOI in July 1988 and defending their actions as a necessary crackdown against those involved. Given the authorities’ ongoing refusal to reveal the whereabouts of those killed, all former and current officials who have contributed to the climate of secrecy and denial facilitating the continued enforced disappearance of thousands of victims must also be held to account Philip Luther, MENA Research and Advocacy Director The mass enforced disappearance and extrajudicial executions constitute crimes against humanity under international law, which no circumstances can ever justify. Beyond this, the authorities have never provided any explanation of how thousands of prisoners held in Iran’s high-security prisons could possibly have communicated with PMOI members outside the country or been involved in the armed incursion. Testimonies from survivors at the prison confirm that prisoners being interrogated between July and September 1988 were not asked about accusations of secret collusion with the PMOI. In addition, the mass executions did not only target prisoners with PMOI ties; hundreds affiliated with leftist and Kurdish opposition groups were among the victims. The contribution of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s government to the climate of secrecy surrounding the killings goes beyond this one interview. Since September 1988, after the news of the mass executions attracted international attention, senior government ministers and diplomats from his administration were actively involved in denying the mass killings in media interviews and exchanges with the UN to shield those responsible from accountability. The officials involved included the then minister of interior, Abdollah Noori, the then minister of foreign affairs, Ali Akbar Velayti, the deputy foreign ministers in 1989 and 1990, Mohammad Hossein Lavasani and Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran’s then permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, Sirous Nasseri, Iran’s then permanent representative to the UN in New York, Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, the Iranian chargé d’affaires in London, UK, Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh Basti, and the Iranian chargé d’affaires in Ottawa, Canada, Mohammad Ali Mousavi. Amnesty International’s report details how these officials either flatly denied the mass killings, dismissed the reports as “nothing but propaganda” or claimed that the killings occurred on the battlefield. They also told the UN that some of the recorded victims did not exist, or were abroad, or studying at university, or being held as prisoners of war or had died due to “natural causes”. “Direct perpetrators of the prison massacres are not the only people who must be subject to criminal investigations. Given the authorities’ ongoing refusal to reveal the whereabouts of those killed, all former and current officials who have contributed to the climate of secrecy and denial facilitating the continued enforced disappearance of thousands of victims must also be held to account,” said Philip Luther. Amnesty International’s report names key officials involved in the mass killings, including Iran’s current justice minister, Alireza Avaei, his predecessor, Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, and former or current prosecution or judicial officials Ebrahim Raisi, Hossein Ali Nayyeri and Morteza Eshraghi, among others. Denying knowledge of the mass killings Since 2009, when he re-entered politics as a Reformist opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi’s response when asked about the 1988 prison massacres has often been to avoid commenting or to claim that they took place without the knowledge of his government. In this way, he has tried to justify his failure to stop, investigate or at least condemn the killings publicly. However, documents from Amnesty International’s archives show that the organization repeatedly raised its concerns about reports of mass prisoner executions with senior officials in Mir Hossein Mousavi’s government including the minister of justice, Hassan Ebrahim Habibi, and the minister of foreign affairs, Ali Akbar Velayati, from as early as 16 August 1988 when the organization issued its first Urgent Action appeal – while the killings were ongoing. The organization released at least 17 more Urgent Actions appeals between 16 August and 22 December 1988, mobilizing activists from around the world to send tens of thousands of appeals to the Iranian government and its diplomatic representatives abroad. On 13 December 1988 it issued a press release accompanied by a briefing. “Despite being confronted with mounting evidenceContinue reading “Amnesty International – Iran: “Top government officials distorted the truth about 1988 prison massacres””

OBERLIN — Pictures of Iranian women executed by the Iranian government in the late 1980s will be shown during a Saturday, March 5, protest again calling for the termination of Oberlin College professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati.