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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.