New York – The Organization of Iranian American Communities in the U.S. organized a picket line on Monday, July 17, 2017, to protest the hosting by the Council of Foreign Relations of the Foreign Minister of the Iranian regime, the most active state sponsor of terrorism in the world.
Such gestures, in blatant disregards for the ruling theocracy appalling human rights record and continuing malign interference in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon, only lend legitimacy to Tehran rulers and emboldens them to continue to suppress the Iranian people and export terrorism abroad.
Date: Monday, July 17, 2017, 4:30 pm
Venue: The Council on Foreign Relations
Harold Pratt House, Upper East Side of Manhattan
58 East 68th Street
New York, NY 10065
STATEMENT:
Neither a charmer Javad Zarif or frowning Ahmadinejad ever deserve podium at the Council on Foreign Relations
Washington, DC; July 13, 2017 – Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC) expresses outrage over the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) decision to grant Iranian regime officials repeated access to one of America’s most prestigious institutions. Under Richard Haas’s presidency, CFR has regrettably been ignorant of the Iranian regime’s repressive policy at home and malign activities beyond Iran’s borders.
Even a cursory review of Haas’s record reveals a troubling tendency to leave CFR’s respected stage at the fancy of then Iranian regime’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, current president Hassan Rouhani, and the duplicitous foreign minister, Javad Zarif.
One cannot be oblivious to the messages this endeavor sends to the Iranian people and to their oppressors, Mr. Zarif’s paymasters.. Zarif represents a regime, which has executed at least 3,000 Iranians (many in public), since Hassan Rouhani took office. And this brutality has continued, with 57 people hanged in the first 12 days of July, meaning five executions per day. Mr. Hass is offering Zarif a CFR podium just as the United States Congress and international humanitarian organizations look to hold Zarif cabinet colleague, Justice Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi accountable for the 1988 massacre of 30,000 Iranianpolitical prisoners.
Sadly, the indiscriminate murder and imprisonment of Iranian Kurds, Baluchis, Sunnis, Christians, Bahais, women, and the under aged, as well as all those who oppose the regime is but a glimpse of the murderous record Zarif is representing. Haas will be shaking the hands of a criminal who just recently met with and warmly hugged a like criminal in Bashar Al-Assad of Syria.
If Mr. Haas fails to disinvite Zarif, perhaps the following questions could be posed:
- What does the Foreign Minister think of the 1988 massacre of as many as 30,000 political prisoners and of the late Ayatollah Montazeri’s view that it was indeed the biggest crime of the Islamic republic and a manifest case of crimes against humanity?
- What justification can Mr. Zarif provide for execution of more than 3,000 Iranians under Rouhani, chopping off limbs of victims, and lashing people in public, whereas regime officials have been given free reins to embezzling of billions of dollars of the Iranian people’s wealth?
We reiterate our commitment to help the Iranian people in their efforts to bring democratic change in Iran and establish a democratic, secular and non-nuclear republic in Iran.
