Victims of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi are urging British authorities to arrest the number two leader of the theocratic state if he attends a climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, starting in late October and running until November 12.
“[First Minister] Nicola Sturgeon and [Prime Minister] Boris Johnson have a duty to act if they really believe in human rights,” Ahmad Ebrahimi told the Daily Record. According to the paper, he “came face-to-face with the despot during his 10 years as a political prisoner when he was physically and emotionally tortured in the notorious Section 209 of Tehran’s Evin House of Detention.”
The US government sanctioned Raisi for his role in the 1988 massacre of over 5,000 innocent Iranian political prisoners and his crackdown of peaceful protestors in 2019, resulting in the mass murder of about 1,500 Iranians, according to Reuters.
The Glasgow-based Daily Record reported that “The new hardline leader... wants to make the UN climate change summit [COP26] his first international trip.”
The paper added that Raisi "is said to have personally whipped prisoners with electric cable while ordering hundreds to be shot, thrown off cliffs and hung publicly from cranes.”
The Sunday Mail headlined its October 10 paper: "Arrest the Butcher. Torture victim's plea as Iranian tyrant heads for climate summit."
The 60-year-old Ebrahami, who fled the Islamic Republic to the UK in 1999, said Raisi “has blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands and I would implore the people, government and police in Scotland and the UK not to allow him to attend COP26 and to instead arrest him immediately should he arrive in Scotland.”
The legal principle that the Iranian dissidents seek to invoke is called “universal jurisdiction” and does not limit the prosecution of a defendant to within the borders of where the crime took place.
Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian regime official accused of mass murder during the 1988 massacre, is currently on trial in Stockholm, Sweden, with respect to this principle.
ACCORDING TO Ebrahami’s wife, Farzaneh Majidi: “Five of my close relatives died. I think of them every day and I will never stop protesting against Raisi. He does not deserve the respect of the international community.”
The couple is slated to file legal complaints under Scottish and English law demanding that Raisi be arrested for “crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide” if he seeks to attend the climate conference.
Ebrahami told the paper, “My feet were tied to the bed frame and beaten – they told me to open my fist when I wanted to confess. Interrogation was always followed by torture.
"They kept me awake for two days and nights standing up; they beat me on my face and body," he said.
"Hundreds of my friends died. In the early days in prison, they were shot in the head or heart. I could hear the barrage of bullets at night. Then, from 1988 people were hung.”
The newspaper said a mere 13 of more than 200 prisoners survived in one section of the prison where Ahmad was incarcerated.
US President Joe Biden and Pope Francis are slated to attend the climate conference.
Meanwhile, the Ohio-based Chronicle-Telegram newspaper on Saturday reported that a November "Protest targets Oberlin College professor who was UN diplomat during 1988 Iran executions."
The families of political prisoners executed by Iran’s regime in 1988 formed a broad-based coalition with Oberlin College alumni, students and human rights activists for a demonstration on November 2 from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. in front of the Cox Administration Building on West Lorain Street in the city of Oberlin.
The coalition organization is called the Oberlin Committee for Justice for Mahallati's Victims.
Amnesty International said Oberlin College prof. Mohammad Jafar Mahallati carried out "crimes against humanity" while serving as the Islamic Republic of Iran's ambassador to the UN in 1988.
Amnesty asserted that Mahallati was among the clerical state's leaders who was "actively involved in denying the mass killings in media interviews and exchanges with the UN to shield those responsible from accountability."
Mahallati denied the allegations against him outlined in the 2018 Amnesty report. The protestors want Oberlin College to fire the professor.
The Jerusalem Post reported last week that the US Education Department Office of Civil Rights is currently evaluating a complaint alleging that Oberlin College created a hostile environment for Jewish students. The complaint alleges that Mahallati glorified terrorism in his classes and promoted the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign targeting Israel. He has refused to respond to Post media queries.