{"id":45667,"date":"2021-06-25T01:22:46","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T01:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=45667"},"modified":"2021-06-25T01:22:46","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T01:22:46","slug":"lebanon-parliament-approves-ration-cards-for-needy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=45667","title":{"rendered":"Lebanon parliament approves ration cards for needy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nLONDON: Iran now has an \u201cinternational criminal\u201d as its president, according to a panel of experts who warned that this could mean he faces arrest if he leaves the country and may be unable to attend the UN.<\/p>\n

\nAt an event on Thursday hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran and attended by Arab News, a panel of diplomats and human rights experts said Ebrahim Raisi\u2019s role in the 1988 massacres of political prisoners means he is guilty of crimes against humanity \u2014 a label that could seriously harm his global diplomatic standing.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe now have an international criminal as president … He\u2019s guilty of crimes against humanity, committed in late 1988 by the slaughter of thousands of prisoners,\u201d said Geoffrey Robertson, a former UN appeal judge and former president of the war crimes court in Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n

\nRobertson, who has conducted an extensive investigation into the 1988 massacres, added that Raisi and his Justice Department henchmen sent prisoners to their deaths in \u201ctwo waves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nFirst killed, Robertson said, were members, allies and sympathizers of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a political group that participated in the 1979 revolution but was later turned upon by the regime following a political disagreement.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cMost of them had actually already completed their sentences. They were executed without pity,\u201d said Robertson.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe second wave was of theocratic dissidents: Communists, atheists, left-wingers. They were executed for being opposed to the theocratic state of Ayatollah (Ruhollah) Khomeini. There we have a crime against humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nMost of the people killed were detained for participating in protests in the early 1980s, said Robertson. They were then subjected to what Amnesty International has called \u201cdeath commissions,\u201d in which judiciary officials led by Raisi, who was then a prosecutor in Tehran, asked them apparently innocuous questions.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThey didn\u2019t know it, but on their answers their lives depended,\u201d said Robertson. Those who gave answers indicating an MEK or atheist affiliation were blindfolded and \u201cordered to join a conga line that led straight to the gallows,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThey were hung from cranes four at a time \u2026 Some were taken to army barracks at night, directed to make their wills and then shot by firing squad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nRaisi\u2019s direct involvement in these crimes could come back to bite Iran in an unexpected way, Robertson said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe UN will have to grapple with the fact that one of its members is led by an international criminal,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIf ever he ventures out of Iran, any democratic country would be entitled under its law \u2014 universal jurisdiction as we call it \u2014 to arrest him and put him on trial,\u201d said Robertson<\/p>\n

\nNick Fluck, president emeritus of the law society of England and Wales, pointed out that Raisi has said in press conferences that he is \u201cproud\u201d of his role in the 1988 massacres.<\/p>\n

\nThis \u201cserves as an important wakeup call that we can\u2019t just sit silently on the sidelines. Silence and inaction don\u2019t produce change, and in this case it\u2019s clear that change is radically needed,\u201d Fluck said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis is a leader who\u2019ll be widely, I hope, shunned. There will be a lack of credibility about anything he may say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nFluck said Raisi\u2019s domestic legitimacy is also seriously lacking, following an election that saw heavy state involvement, with hundreds of candidates barred from running and millions of Iranians boycotting the poll.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDissidents and reformists urged voters to boycott the poll. That\u2019s perhaps why, although he inevitably won the election, he did so with a very low turnout,\u201d Fluck added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON: Iran now has an \u201cinternational criminal\u201d as its president, according to a panel of experts who warned that this could mean he faces arrest if he leaves the country and may be unable to attend the UN. At an event on Thursday hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran and attended by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}