Activists and Nobel laureates accuse Ivy League schools of promoting terrorism and supporting fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, canceling panel discussion featuring controversial Iranian professor The Post reported that they are demanding.
Seyed Hossein Mousabian, a Middle East security expert at Princeton University, will headline a panel discussion, “Israel and Iran: The Future of the Middle East,” Monday night in Dartmouth's Haldeman Hall.
Opponents of the Iranian regime in the United States and Europe have questioned Mousavian's past work for the Iranian regime and his ties to terrorism and the 1992 killing of four students in Berlin at the hands of Hezbollah. We are calling for the event to be canceled.
Critics have also accused Mousabian of being a lobbyist for the current Iranian government, which he denies.
“The Islamic Republic's 'speech tools' can be as dangerous as deadly weapons,” Shirin Ebadi, a former Iranian judge who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, said in a Telegram post on Friday.
“Whitewashing and normalization discourses pave the way for the regime's crimes at home and other actions in the region.”
Mr. Ebadi went on to point out that Mr. Mousavian was the head of Iran's Foreign Ministry's “First Western European Office” “during the darkest moments of the Islamic Republic's rule.” He also claims to have supported a fatwa against author Rushdie, issued in 1989 over his novel The Satanic Verses.
Mousabian was Iran's ambassador to Germany from 1990 to 1997, when four dissidents were murdered behind a Greek restaurant in Berlin in 1992. Five years later, a German court concluded that the Iran Special Affairs Committee had ordered the killing, but did not name Mousabian.
“During his term, at least 24 Iranian dissidents were assassinated by Iranian agents on European soil, including the infamous Mykonos restaurant massacre in Berlin in 1992,” activist group Iran The Defenders League Against Islamic League made the claim in a press statement on Sunday.
“Moosavian defended these actions and also supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, reflecting the regime's blatant opposition to freedom of expression and dissent.”
According to a 2022 interview with Iran's Arman Mehri newspaper, Mousabian blamed Israeli and US agents for all the murders.
More than 2,000 people from Boston to Iran signed the agreement. Change.org Petition for Mousabian's lecture at Dartmouth.
“Instead of providing a platform to individuals with ties to the repressive Iranian regime, we encourage Dartmouth College to engage with local activists and individuals in the New England area who have personally endured the regime's brutality.” they are writing.
Activists are calling on Princeton University to fire Mousabian, and the school faces scrutiny from Congress over why it hired a former top Iranian diplomat.
Iranian academic based in New York Majid Mohammadi She posted a photo of Mohamedi on X Monday and pointed out: “This image alone is an embarrassment to Princeton University. Mousabian is peddling political propaganda and championing author assassinations, terrorism, and the cover-up of the 1988 massacre with the Princeton flag.”
The discussion on “The Future of the Middle East” will also include speakers from the Brookings Institution, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., who will provide their perspectives on the issue.
Mousabian is a nuclear policy expert in Princeton University's Science and Global Security Program. According to his bio on Princeton University's website, he is currently proposing “policy initiatives” surrounding Iran's controversial nuclear project.
Before coming to the United States, Mr. Mousabian was a key figure in the Iranian government, both as a diplomat and as editor of the English-language newspaper Tehran Times, the regime's mouthpiece.
Mousabian was arrested by Iran in 2007 on charges of “espionage” after allegedly leaking information to European members of the Iranian nuclear negotiation team, and was deemed a risk to national security and is no longer a member of the team. Ta.
He was later acquitted of espionage charges, but was convicted of dissident activities. According to CNN.
However, he was allowed to leave the country in 2009 to take up a post at Princeton University. Mousabian University and Princeton University did not respond to requests for comment Monday.
In the email to daily princetonian In 2023, Mousavian claimed that he has “not been able to travel to Iran since June 2021 and has not had any involvement with any government, including the Iranian government, since an Iranian court convicted me in 2008.” did.
