Press Release
New Legal Avenues to take Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, Oberlin College's Professor
to the court for his role in 1988 Massacre
July 24, 2022 is a historic day for the world’s Justice Seeking Movement,
especially for the Iranian people. Today, Hamid Nouri, one of the perpetrators
of the 1988 Massacre of the political prisoners in Iran, was sentenced to a life
sentence in a Swedish District Court in Stockholm. The verdict was issued in the
trial against Hamid Nouri for allegations of war crimes and murder committed
concerning the killing of 1000s in Iran's jails in 1988 under the universal
jurisdiction.
This is the first-ever trial against an individual for core international crimes
committed by representatives of the Islamic Regime of Iran. The court lasted for
nine months, and in its 92 sessions, 58 former political prisoners and family
members of the 1988 Massacre victims testified against Nouri. This verdict opens
the door for the families of the victims of the 1988 Massacre to seek justice in
the western countries' courts against other perpetrators of this crime against
humanity, such as Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, the so-called peace professor at
Oberlin College. In his interview with Masih Alinejad on Voice of America,
Mahallati repeated his false claims that the massacre was a secret. The
findings of Swedish court and the
articles from different US and British newspapers show that the massacre was
not a secret and the world knew about it as it was happening.
Since October 2020, our campaign against Mahallati has demanded Oberlin College
to "fire Mahallati, apologize to the family members of the 1988 Massacre for
hiring Mahallati, and review the process by which Mahallati was hired at Oberlin
and the process by which he was granted tenure. We must know what due diligence
was conducted on Mr. Mahallati before his hiring, whether human rights
organizations were ever consulted on the role Iran's former representative to
the UN may have played in that country's human rights crisis, and whether such
widely available information was ignored." We also like to know the connection
between Mrs. Nancy Dye, Oberlin College’s President trip to Iran in 2004, and
her decision to hire Mahallati. We, a group of former political prisoners in
Iran, families of executed political prisoners, human rights activists who work
for justice and accountability, and international jurists who have examined the
record of Iran’s gross human rights abuses repeat our demands and hope that with
this new verdict we can also continue our efforts against Mahallati in the
courts of law.
Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists
www.aairia.org
For more information contact: Lawdan Bazargan (562) 212-9546
lawdanbazargan@gmail.com
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