Complaint against Iran’s president before visit to Switzerland
Published: Monday, Dec 11th 2023, 19:23
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Three alleged victims of the Iranian government's brutal crackdown on opposition members in the 1980s have filed a lawsuit in Switzerland against Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi. Raisi is expected in Geneva this week.
In the indictment dated Monday, which the AFP news agency was able to view, Raisi is accused of "genocide, torture, extrajudicial executions and other crimes against humanity".
The letter calls on the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland to arrest Raisi and prosecute him. Raisi wants to attend the United Nations Global Refugee Forum in Switzerland, which begins on Wednesday in Geneva. The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland did not initially confirm receipt of the complaint.
Human rights groups have long been campaigning for a legal investigation into the alleged extrajudicial executions of thousands of young people in Iranian prisons in 1988. Most of those killed were supporters of the banned opposition movement the People's Mujahedin.
Plaintiffs accuse Raisi of brutality
The plaintiffs stated that they could personally identify Raisi as a member of a commission that sent thousands of imprisoned opposition members to their deaths during the brutal crackdown. Raisi was deputy prosecutor general in Tehran at the time and distinguished himself on the commission by being particularly zealous in sentencing prisoners to death, according to the statement of claim.
The main plaintiff, Resa Shemiriani, was arrested in 1981 and was one of the fewer than 150 out of 5000 prisoners in his cell wing who survived the purges of 1988. By his own account, he remained in prison until 1991 and was tortured on a daily basis.
An international campaign is running in parallel to the lawsuit, criticizing Raisi's planned participation in the UN Refugee Forum and calling for his prosecution. "Raisi was one of the main perpetrators of the massacre of thousands of political prisoners in 1988. His presence at the UN forum contradicts the fundamental values for which the UN stands," the petition states. So far, more than 200 dignitaries, Nobel Prize winners, judges, former ministers, parliamentarians and UN human rights experts have signed the petition, which also calls for Raisi to be prosecuted.
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