Iran’s President Not Welcome in US, Should be Prosecuted for ‘Crimes Against Humanity’, Say Iranian Americans
An ad hoc group of more than five hundred Iranian-American scientists, academics and professionals is calling on US President Joe Biden not only to deny the Iranian President a visa to enter the United States, but to prosecute Ebrahim Raisi. Crimes against humanity and genocide,” reads a letter released by the group Sept. 8.
In August, the Iranian government announced that Raisi would apply for an entry visa to the United States to attend the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York later this month. But a spokesman for the ad hoc committee, Kazem Kazerounian, Iranian-American dean of engineering at the University of Connecticut, said they are asking the Biden administration to take “strong and immediate action to show that Raisi is not the people represent Iran and must therefore be denied entry visas to the United States.”
In 1988, on the orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, thousands of Iranians were executed in an extrajudicial massacre, some for nothing more than buying the wrong newspaper, Kazerounian said. According to several news reports, Raisi was a member of the “Tehran Death Committee,” which sent up to three thousand Iranians to their deaths for opposing the regime. Kazerounian told The Epoch Times that he himself “had family members murdered in the 1988 massacre.”
Kazerounian said this request to Biden was not just for the signers of the letter, but an appeal “reflecting the demand of the entire Iranian people.” He said it was Biden’s duty as “President of the most powerful country in the world to stand up for freedom.”
Last month, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment against Islamic Revolutionary Guard member Shahram Poursafi for allegedly attempting to hire an assassin to kill former White House National Security Adviser John Bolton. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was reportedly the second target in the assassination plot.
Pompeo joined others in August to call for Raisi’s visa to be denied. “We have worked for four years to deny the freedom of Iranian terrorists to put Americans at risk,” Pompeo told the Washington Free Beacon.
Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley also disagreed, telling Fox News “under no circumstances” should Raisi be granted a visa.
In a joint letter in early August, several Republican senators presented their objections to the White House. Among them, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and others declared: “Raisi’s involvement in mass murder and the The Iranian regime’s campaign to assassinate US officials on American soil make allowing Raisi and his henchmen into our country an inexcusable threat to national security.”
Another co-signer of the Sept. 8 Iran-US letter, Firouz Daneshgari, a professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University, said in a statement, “With this letter, we are making the U.S. President aware that he may not Raisi.” allow to use the UN podium at the UN; Instead, the US should take the lead at the United Nations to prosecute Raisi for crimes against humanity and genocide.”
A State Department spokesman told the Jewish News Service in August that the United States has “a general obligation under the UN Headquarters Agreement to facilitate travel by representatives of UN members.”
Critics say the Biden administration is downplaying the Iranian threat as it seeks to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA), better known as the Iran Nuclear Deal. These negotiations were thwarted by Iran’s recalcitrance. Nevertheless, critics accuse Biden of giving in too readily to the demands of the extremist Iranian regime.
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s advocacy group, the regime’s de facto consulate in Washington, could not be reached for comment.
The White House and State Department have not responded to inquiries from The Epoch Times.
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