Crimes Against Humanity Charges against Iranian Ebrahim Yazdi - March 2005

PRESS RELEASE
London , March 9, 2005
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THE IRANIAN ACTION COMMITTEE, TOGETHER WITH SEVERAL OTHER PROMINENT IRANIANS HAD MADE NECESSARY PREPARATIONS TO FILE CHARGES AGAINST DR. EBRAHIM YAZDI FOR BEING ACCESSORY TO ACTS OF TORTURE AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. THE CHARGES WERE PREPARED BY BRITISH LAWYERS TO BE FILED ON MONDAY 7 2005, THE DAY THAT WAS DECLARED TO BE THE DATE OF ARRIVAL OF YAZDI IN LONDON. THE VISIT WAS CANCELLED WITHOUT ANY EXPLANATION. YAZDI MUST HAVE RECEIVED ADVANCE INFORMATION AS TO PREPARATIONS FOR FILING OF THE CHARGES AND HIS POSSIBLE ARREST IN ENGLAND.

Ebrahim Yazdi was the closet associate and the top advisor of Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris and in Tehran from the start of the Revolution.

Ebrahim Yazdi was trained in Yasser Arafat’s terrorist camps in Lebanon prior to the Iranian revolution and was the principle architect and founder of the notorious Revolutionary Guards and the Kangaroo Revolutionary Courts after the inception of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Immediately after his return to Iran with Khomeini, Yazdi was named Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Revelutioary Affairs.

During his term in office, Yazdi played the main role in turning Iran into a bloodbath with summary executions and draconian torture chambers. He also held nationally televised interrogations of those arrested and paraded those individuals on television – with blood dripping from the mouth of one of them – while threatening and humiliating them. Those individuals included, former Prime Minister Amir Abass Hoveida, Mr. Salar Jaf – a member of the parliament, General Mehdi Rahimi, General Manouchehr Khosrodad, General Nematollah Nasiri, General Reza Naji and Dr. Mansour Rohani – former Minister of Agriculture, all of whom were tortured and executed in the initial days after the Revloution.

The Iranian Action Committee, which pursues the International Crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran (www.iricrimes.org), is composed of 38 Iranian human rights advocates inside Iran and 27 outside Iran.

The founding organizer of the Committee to Pursue the International Crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran is Dr. Manouchehr Ganji a former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and a former Minister of Education of Iran.

The petition to bring Dr. Ebrahim Yazdi before the British Courts to answer to charges of having been accessory to the commission of acts of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment of political prisoners in Iran constituting crimes against humanity was brought by:

1. The Iranian Action Committee (www.iricrimes.org);
2. Mrs. Manijeh Rahimi, the wife of deceased General Mehdi Rahimi ;
3. Dr. Fereidoun Hoveida, the brother of deceased Prime Minister Amir Abass Hoveida, former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Iran to the United Nations ;
4. Dr. Houshang Nahavandi, the former Chancellor of Tehran University and former Minister of Science and Higher Education,
5. Professor Hussein Eshraghi, former Professor at Tehran University ;
6. Professor Iraj Lalezari, former Dean of the faculty of Pharmacology at Tehran University ;
7. Mr. Isac Yomtovian, businessman and a leading member of the Iranian-Jewish community,
8. Mr. Rafi Khachtorian, actor and a leading member of the Iranian-Christian community ;

The Iranian Action Committee , with the financial support of Iranians is preparing the grounds for the possible arrest and the detention of such individuals should they intend to visit any of the countries where the judicial system allows these individuals to be tried for their support of acts of torture and murder of political prisoners.