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Iran’s President Cancels UN Trip Amid Lawsuit Demanding Arrest Over ‘Crimes Against Humanity’
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi speaks during the official farewell ceremony for his trip to New York, at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, Iran, September 17, 2023. Photo: Iran’s Presidency/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has canceled a planned trip to Geneva, Switzerland to attend the United Nations Global Refugee Forum amid international outcry over the participation of the Iranian leader, who faced a fresh legal complaint this week demanding Swiss authorities arrest him for “crimes against humanity.”
Raisi, long accused of major human rights abuses, was set to participate in the UN event and address the forum on Wednesday. However, the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that Raisi had canceled his trip.
UN officials told French and Swiss media that Iran’s delegation would be led by Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
News of the nixed Raisi trip came after three alleged victims of the Iranian regime’s violent crackdown on dissidents in the 1980s filed a legal complaint on Monday asking Swiss authorities to arrest the Iranian president when he landed in Switzerland. The complaint also asked for Raisi’s prosecution “over his participation in acts of genocide, torture, extrajudicial executions, and other crimes against humanity.”
The UN, the US government, and human rights groups have documented and condemned how Iran notoriously executed thousands of political prisoners in 1988, when Raisi was deputy prosecutor of Tehran and part of a so-called “death committee” that ordered several of the killings.
Raisi was asked about his alleged involvement in the 1988 mass killings at a news conference in June 2021.
“If a judge, a prosecutor has defended the security of the people, he should be praised,” he said. “I am proud to have defended human rights in every position I have held so far.”
Two years earlier, an audiotape was released of the late Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the one-time designated successor to former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, lashing out in 1988 at Raisi and others alleged to be complicit in facilitating the mass killings, declaring, “You all will be judged as the biggest criminals in history.”
Raisi hasn’t just been tied to human rights abuses in 1988. In December 2019, the US government confirmed that the Iranian regime killed about 1,500 anti-government protesters as part of a crackdown by security forces on demonstrations the prior month.
The Treasury Department sanctioned Raisi, who was judiciary chief at the time and had a direct role in the suppression effort, for “advancing” the regime’s “domestic and foreign oppression.”
More recently, Raisi has been assailed by Western leaders for overseeing Tehran’s crackdown on the wave of nationwide demonstrations that erupted in Sept. 2022 with the killing of Jina “Mahsa” Amini, the young Kurdish woman whose death at the hands of Iran’s morality police sparked protests against the ruling Islamist regime on an unprecedented scale.
During the latest protests, it is estimated that hundreds of Iranians have been killed and tens of thousands arrested.
“We firmly believe that the United Nations, as a bastion of human rights and justice, should not compromise its reputation by extending an invitation to an individual accused of grave human rights violations,” the complaint said of Raisi attending the Global Refugee Forum.
The UN came under heavy fire for allowing Raisi to attend the event in Geneva alongside personnel from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a US-designated terrorist organization.
Over 300 former UN officials, politicians, Nobel Prize winners, academics, and other influential leaders signed a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, president of the Swiss Confederation, and top European leaders expressing “deep concern regarding the planned participation of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi the upcoming 2023 Global Refugee Forum.”
The letter pointed to Raisi’s role in the 1988 massacre of thousands of political prisoners in Iran. It also stated that, in the past two months alone, Iranian authorities have executed at least 212 prisoners, “including seven political prisoners, three women, one juvenile offender, and a 17-year-old boy. At least three of those executions took place in public.”
The secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a coalition of Iranian opposition groups seeking to topple the regime, said in a statement that Raisi’s visit would be “an insult to human rights, the sacred right of asylum, and a stain on the history of the United Nations. It simply emboldens this regime in the killing of the people of Iran, the export of terrorism, and warmongering. He must be tried and punished for four decades of crimes against humanity and genocide.”
Members of Raisi’s planned entourage from the IRGC included Brig. Gen. Abdullah Mobini Dehkhodaee, who according to the NCRI was traveling to Geneva under the title of “deputy minister of interior and head of the Immigration Organization.”
A spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN’s refugee agency, defended the decision to allow Raisi to attend this week’s forum.
“Iran is a member state of the United Nations and therefore invited to the Global Refugee Forum,” the spokesperson told The Algemeiner. “Iran has also been one of the largest refugee hosting countries for over 40 years.”
The post Iran’s President Cancels UN Trip Amid Lawsuit Demanding Arrest Over ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Incoming US Senate Majority Leader Threatens ICC With Sanctions Over Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu
An exterior view of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, March 31, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
Incoming US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has threatened to push legislation imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it does not halt its efforts to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Thune, who was picked last week to be the next Senate majority leader once the Republicans take control of the legislative chamber in January, wrote Sunday on X/Twitter that he will make it a “top priority” to punish the ICC if it refuses to walk back its arrest warrant application issued against Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The US lawmaker also indicated he would take action if Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the current Senate majority leader, does not do so against the intergovernmental organization.
“If the ICC and its prosecutor do not reverse their outrageous and unlawful actions to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials, the Senate should immediately pass sanctions legislation, as the House has already done on a bipartisan basis,” he wrote. “If Majority Leader Schumer does not act, the Senate Republican majority will stand with our key ally Israel and make this — and other supportive legislation ‚ a top priority in the next Congress.”
In May, the ICC chief prosecutor officially requested arrest warrants for the Israeli premier, Gallant, and three Hamas terrorist leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Al-Masri, and Ismail Haniyeh — accusing all five men of “bearing criminal responsibility” for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Israel or the Gaza Strip. The three Hamas leaders have since been killed, and Gallant was recently fired as Israel’s defense minister.
US and Israeli officials subsequently issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan has come under fire for making his surprise demand for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on the same day in May that he suddenly canceled a long-planned visit to both Gaza and Israel to collect evidence of alleged war crimes. The last-second cancellation infuriated US and British leaders, according to Reuters, which reported that the trip would have offered Israeli leaders a first opportunity to present their position and outline any action they were taking to respond to the war crime allegations.
Thune’s Republican colleagues praised his threat to the ICC, suggesting that the Senate should target the international organization.
“Well done Senator Thune. The ICC’s actions against Israel have been outrageous, and an independent review into the prosecutor’s actions is more than called for,” wrote Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). :The Senate should take up the ICC sanctions bill that passed the House in a bipartisan manner. Standing up for Israel today protects America tomorrow.”
“The Senate must immediately pass legislation to sanction the International Criminal Court,” stated Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY.), chair of the Senate Republican Conference. “Senate Republicans stands with Israel.”
“The Senate Foreign Relations Committee can and should act ASAP to pass ICC sanctions legislation. We waited for months for the majority to schedule the vote only to have them postpone it before the election. We will not fail to act when Republicans are in the majority,” wrote Sen. John Risch (R-ID), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) wrote that the Senate “should immediately consider the bipartisan legislation passed by the House to sanction the ICC.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) added that Thune is “right” and that “Chuck Schumer should do his job” by advancing legislation to sanction the ICC.
The US has said it does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction and rejects the implied equivalence drawn between Israel and Hamas.
The post Incoming US Senate Majority Leader Threatens ICC With Sanctions Over Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Concordia closes its Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, citing ‘budgetary constraints’
It was announced quietly, wit a small, two-paragraph notice replacing the web page for Concordia University’s Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS), along with an unrelated stock […]
The post Concordia closes its Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, citing ‘budgetary constraints’ appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Jamaal Bowman Continues Diatribes Against Israel, AIPAC; Expresses Pride in Not Condemning Oct. 7 Massacre
US Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) speaks during the National Action Network National Convention in New York City, US, April 7, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
In his final weeks as a US federal lawmaker, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) has continued his persistent condemnation of Israel, accusing the Jewish state of perpetrating “apartheid” against Palestinians, expressing pride in not supporting a resolution condemning Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, and arguing against the funding of Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.
During a newly released interview with left-wing pundit Rania Khalek, Bowman reflected on his unsuccessful reelection bid earlier this year. The lawmaker blamed the “pro-Israel lobby” for his loss in the Democratic primary, claiming that his outspokenness about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war made him a target for “Zionists.”
Bowman, one of the staunchest critics of Israel in the US Congress, argued that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group, overwhelmed his campaign by spending roughly $15 million to aid his opponent, Westchester County Executive George Latimer. He added that his constituents were stunned that a “special interest” group such as AIPAC “can remove a congressman” by submerging a primary race in a torrent of money.
“Now the world has seen AIPAC for who they are,” Bowman stated.
The stated mission of AIPAC is to seek bipartisan support to strengthen the US-Israel relationship.
Bowman admitted that he did not know much about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he initially ran for office, opting to parrot talking points such as Israel “has a right to exist” and a “right to defend itself.”
Bowman said that his opinion on Israel was transformed after he visited the country on a trip sponsored by J Street, a progressive Zionist organization that recently called for the US to impose an arms embargo against the Jewish state. The left-wing firebrand said that the trip — which consisted of a series of discussions with peace activists, scholars, and former Israel Defense Force (IDF) officers — soured his view of the Jewish state, comparing the security checkpoints and barrier wall that separate Israel and the West Bank to protect against terrorism with the Jim Crow laws in the US south segregating black Americans.
Khalek asked Bomwan if his view on Iron Dome has shifted, citing that the missile interception system “shields Israel from the consequences for bombing all of its neighbors, for constantly stealing land.”
The congressman claimed that his view on Israel’s air defense system has changed, arguing that it represents “a weapon to use and continue apartheid, oppression, open-air prison, occupation, and now the genocide” of Palestinians. He said that he regrets voting in favor of Iron Dome funding, and that the missile defense system should only be replenished if the Palestinians are given a fully-funded army on Israel’s borders.
Bowman also criticized a congressional resolution condemning the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, suggesting that AIPAC authored the document. He dismissed the notion that the mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of Israelis on Oct. 7 was “unprovoked,” claiming that Israel initiated the aggression by enacting “apartheid” on Palestinians. He then lambasted American governors, senators, and President Joe Biden for immediately showing empathy to Israelis, saying that legislators were being “dishonest” and not having a “full conversation” about the Jewish state.
In the year following the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Bowman intensified his rhetoric against Israel and pro-Israel organizations. Over the summer, he condemned AIPAC as a “Zionist regime.” In a desperate attempt to salvage his ill-fated primary effort, he promise the Democratic Socialists of America — a prominent far-left organization that has made anti-Israel activism a top priority — that he would vote against future Iron Dome funding in exchange for financial backing of his campaign. Bowman infamously dismissed the widely reported and corroborated allegations of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women during the Oct. 7 onslaught as “propaganda” before being forced to walk back his remarks.
In June, Latimer cruised to a commanding victory over Bowman, winning by a margin of 58 percent to 41 percent.
The post Jamaal Bowman Continues Diatribes Against Israel, AIPAC; Expresses Pride in Not Condemning Oct. 7 Massacre first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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