Participation of Pre-eminent Experts, Rapporteurs, and jurists in the wake of Javaid Rehman’s landmark report
Maryam Rajavi: Call for the Global “No to the Death Penalty” Campaign
At a conference on Saturday, August 24, 2024, on atrocity and crimes against humanity in the massacre of political prisoners and genocide against the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran in 1988 and the mass executions in 1981 and 1982 in Iran, the imperative of accountability and ending impunity for the masterminds and perpetrators consistent with international laws and treaties were discussed.
The following renowned personalities attended the conference:
– Professor Chile Eboe-Osuji, President of the International Criminal Court (ICC) (2018-2021);
– Prof. Leila Sadat, Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the ICC Prosecutor (2012 – 2023);
– Prof. William Schabas, world-renowned scholar on genocide, former chair of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict (2014-2015);
– Prof. Javaid Rehman, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran (2018 – 2024);
– Prof. Herta Däubler-Gmelin, Minister of Justice, Germany, (1998 – 2002);
– Prof. Wolfgang Schomburg, former Judge, UN International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda;
– Dr. Mark Ellis, Executive Director, International Bar Association (IBA);
– Prof. Claudio Grossman, Special Adviser to the ICC Prosecutor, Member, UN International Law Commission (ILC);
– Clément N. Voule, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association (2018 – 2024);
– Prof. Jeremy Sarkin, Chair-Rapporteur and Member of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID), (2008 – 2014);
– Steven Schneebaum, Adjunct Prof., School of Advanced International Studies, The John Hopkins University;
– Tahar Boumedra, President of JVMI; former Head of the UN Human Rights Office in Iraq;
– Kenneth Lewis, Lawyer for the PMOI in the Swedish trial of the mass murderer, Hamid Noury;
– Gilles Paruelle, Lawyer, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, former president of Val d’Oise Province Bar Association; and
– Amb. Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr., former US Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs.
In the past month, the Velayat-e Faqih regime, under its new administration, has executed at least 126 prisoners across various cities. This is part of a broader wave of executions this year, where the mullahs have exercised unrestrained brutality. These heinous crimes reflect… pic.twitter.com/gp0ay0gHBK
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) August 24, 2024
In their remarks, the speakers underscored the fundamental and universal rights of the Iranian people and the crimes that have shocked humanity.
Prof. Javaid Rehman said, “An overwhelming majority of the executed persons were members and sympathizers of PMOI…. The case for genocide against members of the PMOI rests, in my view, on the basis that the perpetrators of this crime perceive members of the group as Munafiqin (Hypocrites)…. For these perpetrators, members of this group had become deviants. They had deserted Islam and were waging war against Islam. Insofar as the Iranian theocracy was concerned, PMOI was perceived as a religious group, albeit a deviant and heretical group, with a legitimate religious justification of mass executions, torture, and mental and physical harm to members of this group.”
Prof. Schneebaum referred to the sham trial in absentia for 104 leaders and members of the Iranian Resistance currently undergoing in Tehran. “Any red notice requested by Iran should be rejected at the outset by Interpol, and if issued, should be ignored by any country to which it is presented… This fake legal drapery is designed to camouflage a new campaign of terrorism against the MEK and other regime opponents abroad,” Mr. Schneebaum emphasized.
Amb. Bloomfield noted, “The West has accepted and amplified substantially false portrayals of Iran and its resistance for at least a generation,” adding, “Now, when we see defamatory stories in the media about PMOI expelling their children from Iraq in 1991, when in fact these evacuations were no different from many children leaving Ukraine after Russia’s invasion. if we read disturbing accounts of life inside the resistance by former p m o PMOI members only to find that they are on the Iranian intelligence payroll, we can see who in the Western media are essentially functioning as Tehran’s agents of influence.”
NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi described Prof. Rehman’s report as the most appropriate definition of Atrocity Crimes against humanity and genocide. She added: In the face of a regime of executions and massacres, I again call on everyone to expand the campaign against executions…. For years, our resistance has championed the abolition of the death penalty. We stand united for an Iran free from torture, repression, and all forms of injustice and inequality. We advocate for a democratic republic founded on the separation of religion and state, with an independent judiciary adhering to principles such as the presumption of innocence, the right to defense, the right to a public trial, and the complete independence of judges….
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
August 25, 2024
One of the most horrific instances of #HumanRights violations by the Iranian regime is the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988, with 90% of the victims being members of the PMOI. This book contains the names of 5,000 PMOI prisoners massacred in 1988. The… pic.twitter.com/z9YbzqQKoC
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) August 24, 2024
