Dr. Javaid Rehman, the United Nations’s former Rapporteur on the Islamic Republic of Iran, said he was postponing a planned visit to the US in September after facing threats from Iranian officials for attending a Paris conference on the 1988 killings of political prisoners in Iran.
“There have been all forms of personal abuse and unsubstantiated allegations against me including bias, political corruption, receiving bribes and illicit payment to discredit me and undermine the independence of my work,” Rehman said in an exclusive interview with Kayhan Life. “I shall continue undeterred to promote and protect the rights of victims and seek justice and accountability. However, in light of the ongoing risks of verbal or physical attacks by the regime and its sympathizers, I have had to postpone a planned visit to the United States for September 2024.”
Rehman said he would speak to victims of human rights abuses and human rights organizations through online platforms for the foreseeable future.
Rehman attended the Aug. 24 Paris event as a speaker to discuss his July UN report on the Islamic Republic’s execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, mostly members of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) opposition group. The group – which also refers to itself as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) — is currently based in Albania, and often holds events in France.
Rehman’s report was the focus of the Paris conference, which was organized by victims’ families, former political prisoners, and international lawyers. In the report, Rehman defines the “atrocity crimes” of summary, arbitrary and extra-judicial executions from 1981 to 82 and in 1988 as crimes against humanity.
In a Sept. 5 written statement, Rehman — who stepped down as UN rapporteur on Aug. 1 and was replaced by Dr. Mai Sato — said he had been accused by Iranian officials of receiving money to speak at the event.
Rehman told Kayhan Life that he attended the event in his capacity as a former UN Rapporteur and that “the UN Code of conduct allowed me to claim my travel and accommodation expenses provided all such information is properly disclosed,” adding: ”I have always made all appropriate disclosures.”
“I completely reject the false and fabricated accusations that I received any form of honorarium, conference fee or speaker fee for participation in the conference,” Dr. Rehman said in the statement, which was shared with Kayhan Life. “There have been false allegations against me that I have received funding to attend this meeting based on various allegations that high-profile persons have been paid to attend such events.”
The conference was hosted by the London-based not-for-profit center Justice for Victims of 1988 Massacre in Iran (JVMI), which is run by families of the victims, former political prisoners and international lawyers working to hold Iran’s government accountable for the killings.
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The center’s board includes JVMI president and former UN expert Tahar Boumedra (who also spoke at the event);UK lawyer Kirsty Brimelow; and UK lawmaker Sir David Alton.
“During my time as the Special Rapporteur, this victims’ rights organization had invited me to Geneva on Feb. 15, an event which I attended with full knowledge and approval of my office in the United Nations. I noted this support, clearly and transparently in my ‘atrocity crimes’ report,” Rehman told Kayhan Life. “However, importantly no issues were ever raised about my participation in the Feb. 15 event; I see a sudden change of perceptions of the regime and its proxies after the publication of the ‘atrocity crimes’ report.”
Alton expressed his support for Rehman in an Aug. 27 post on X (formerly Twitter).
“The Iranian regime must immediately stop personal, fabricated attacks against Professor Javaid Rehman @JavaidRehman. The British Government @Keir_Starmer must ensure justice, accountability and ending impunity as recommended by Professor Rehman in his outstanding report,” Alton said.
Speakers at conferences and rallies organized by the MEK itself have included former US Associate Attorney General Rudy Giuliani, former US Vice President Mike Pence, and former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss.
According to a 2016 report by current affairs magazine Politico, Giuliani was allegedly given at least $20,000 by the MEK to attend its events and to lobby the US congress to have the group removed from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).
Additionally, a 2018 report by the Guardian newspaper said that former US National Security Advisor John Bolton was allegedly paid more than $180,000 to attend MEK events as a speaker. Estimates range from $30,000 to $50,000 per speech, according to the Guardian.
The MEK was taken off the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 2012.
MEK leader Maryam Rajavi, who is the president-elect of its National Council of Resistance of Iran, was the keynote speaker at the Paris conference.
Additional speakers included:
- Dr. Chile Eboe-Osuji, a former president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) from 2018 to 2021;
- Professor Leila Nadya Sadat a special advisor on crimes against humanity to the ICC Prosecutor from 2012 to 2023;
- Kenneth Lewis, the lawyer for the PMOI in the Swedish trial of Iran official Hamid Noury who was convicted for his role in the executions;
- several former UN experts; and
- former lawmakers from the US and Germany.
Rehman also said in his Sept. 5 statement that he had been accused of calling Rajavi ‘the President-elect of Iran’ by Seyed Rasoul Mousavi, the director general of the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s West Asia department, during his speech.
“For international human rights organizations, there is no greater scandal than that #جاويدرحمان [Javaid Rehman] their rapporteur, after 6 years of reporting on Iran, called the terrorist leader Maryam Rajavi the elected president of Iran,” Mousavi said in a Sep. 3 post on X, written in Farsi.
Mousavi appeared to be referencing a comment made during Rehman’s opening remarks at the event in which he said: “Thank you, good afternoon, dear Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect, distinguished colleagues and friends, I would like to thank you firstly for this invitation.” The speech was made public in a video of the event uploaded on Aug. 29 to JVMI’s YouTube account.
Rehman, responding to the accusation in his statement, said: “The term ‘President-elect of the NCRI’ is the exact title provided to me in the conference agenda. This issue has been completely misinterpreted by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its sympathizers to suggest words or terms that I did not use.”
“I must alert the international community that through this smear campaign against me, the Iranian authorities (and their sympathizers) are attempting to escape and avoid accountability for their crimes,” Rehman added.
Discussing his future projects focusing on Iran human rights violations, Rehman told Kayhan Life: “In my capacity as a Professor of Law, I shall continue my campaign for justice for the victims of human rights violations in Iran and I shall be writing and researching about the challenges to constitutionalism in the Muslim world including within Iran.”
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