{"id":262647,"date":"2022-08-24T17:04:10","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T15:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=262647"},"modified":"2023-02-06T12:51:10","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T11:51:10","slug":"bar-irans-regime-president-from-un-general-assembly-to-prevent-the-growth-of-impunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/bar-irans-regime-president-from-un-general-assembly-to-prevent-the-growth-of-impunity\/","title":{"rendered":"Bar Iran\u2019s Regime President From UN General Assembly To Prevent the Growth of Impunity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ebrahim
Bar Iran\u2019s Regime President From UN General Assembly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The United Nations General Assembly is slated to begin its 77th<\/sup> session on September 13, with several world leaders addressing the international body in subsequent days.<\/p>\n

As of now, it appears that the Iranian regime President Ebrahim Raisi<\/a> plans to attend the UNGA and that the United States is prepared to grant him a visa allowing him to visit New York. Both of these expectations are unfortunate insofar as they demonstrate the US’s willingness to overlook terrible human rights abuses and terrorist threats while also demonstrating that Tehran is aware of it.<\/p>\n

Raisi ostensibly had an opportunity to attend last year’s General Assembly within a month of his inauguration. However, he sent a video message instead, and some observers interpreted that decision as a sign of concern over the possible consequences of travel to the US or other Western nations. It came at a time when the former Iranian prison official Hamid Noury<\/a> faced prosecution for war crimes and mass murder after being arrested in Sweden in 2019. That arrest was made possible by the principle of “universal jurisdiction,” which allows virtually any country to pursue charges for citizens of another if there is evidence they have committed serious violations of international law.<\/p>\n

In Noury’s case, the violations in question related to his participation in a massacre<\/a> of Iranian political prisoners during the summer of 1988. That massacre was initiated by a fatwa<\/a> from then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, which declared supporters of the country’s leading pro-democracy opposition group to be enemies of God, deserving of execution based on their beliefs alone. The fatwa was largely implemented by “death commissions” that were convened across the country, including in Tehran, which counted Ebrahim Raisi as one of its four members.<\/p>\n

In that role, Raisi evidently assumed responsibility for the greatest single share of the massacre’s death toll, which has been estimated at roughly 30,000. That role was highlighted by much of the testimony from survivors and eyewitnesses in Noury’s trial, which led to the Stockholm district court imposing a sentence of life in prison this year. The sentence arguably should have reinforced Raisi’s preexisting concerns over the consequences of foreign travel, but his prospective attendance at the UNGA suggests that those concerns have dissipated rather than grown.<\/p>\n

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Iran: A Fatwa Which Took the Life of 30,000 Political Prisoners in 1988 Massacre<\/div><\/div>
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