Iranian dissidents and former detainees in Iran, including an Australian-British woman, announced in New York on Tuesday that they have filed a civil suit against incumbent Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi, who is expected to be at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday. hopefully.
According to the National Union, the lawsuit against Raisi, which had not yet been made public in federal civil court in Manhattan, alleges his role as a judge in Iran in the 1980s, when thousands of people were sentenced to death. The death sentence was given. For Democracy in Iran (NUFDI), a Washington-based opposition group.
“In total, I spent 12 months in an isolation cell during two years and three months in Iran’s prison. I was subjected to a full range of psychological and physical torture and often cruel, abusive and degrading treatment,” the university said. student Kylie Moore-Gilbert said in a press videoconference from New York.
Moore-Gilbert was detained in Iran on charges of alleged espionage from September 2018 to November 2020.
Former political prisoner Naveed Mohebbi, a member of NUFDI, said at the same press conference, “This action is a step towards justice and an attempt to help the victims regain their dignity.”
The civil lawsuit calls for US law to protect victims of acts of torture.
NUFDI’s political director, Cameron Khansarinia, observed that “the plaintiffs in this case, Iranian dissidents, former Iranians and Western hostages, have been reunited.”
According to him, it “echoed the cries we hear in the streets of Iran today” referring to the protests in Iran against the death of young Mahsa Amini following his arrest by the ethics police.
In August, also in New York, the People’s Mujahideen (MEK), an opposition movement in exile, announced a similar civil trial against Raisi, accusing him of being part of a “death commission” made up of four judges in the 1980s, and that he Thousands of executions and torture would have been ordered to Iranian opponents.
President Raisi, elected in August 2021, is expected to deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.
Raisi and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, held a meeting in New York on Tuesday to discuss the country’s nuclear program and women’s rights.
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