On Thursday, September 8, 2022, the Iranian Professionals sent an open letter signed by over 500 prominent Iranian American scientists, academics, and professionals to President Biden calling for the prosecution of Iran regime’s president Ebrahim Raisi for crimes against humanity and genocide and asked that his entry visa be denied.
Families of the victims of the 1988 massacre and plaintiffs of the federal complaint filed in New York against Raisi for his egregious human rights violations are among the letter co-signers.
Professor Kazem Kazerounian, Dean of Engineering at the University of Connecticut and a co-signers said, “Ebrahim Raisi is personally responsible for incomprehensible crimes against humanity, yet he has never been held accountable anywhere; now is the time.”
Professor Firouz Daneshgari, Professor of Surgery and 3rd Chairman of Department of Urology at Case Western Reserve University, said, “with this letter, we bring to the attention of the US president that he must not allow Raisi to use the UN podium at the UN; instead, the US should take lead at the UN to prosecute Raisi for crimes against humanity and genocide.”
Chief Data Scientist, Ms. Sima Yazdani, stated, “Our letter echoes the voices of Iran’s people who have waged uprisings since 2017, and the women who are suppressed by the misogynist regime Raisi represents.”
The full text of the open letter is as follows:
September 8, 2022
The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
CC:
• The Honorable Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State
• The Honorable Members of the U.S. Senate
• The Honorable Members of the U.S. House of Representatives
Dear President Biden,
The 77th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 77) will open on Tuesday, 13 September 2022. In this assembly, Ebrahim Raisi the president of the clerical regime ruling Iran is expected to address world leaders. We, the Iranian-American scientists, academics, and professionals, echo the cry of our families and our colleagues in Iran, to ask for your administration’s strong and immediate actions to reflect that Raisi does not represent the people of Iran and therefore must be denied entry visa to the United States.
For over a century, the people of Iran have struggled for freedom from the tyranny of the Shah and the mullahs currently ruling in Iran. We ask that you stand with the people of Iran in their demands for peace, freedom and a non-nuclear, secular Republic Iran. In your address to the UNGA, we trust that you will highlight the views reflected by a large bi-partisan voice in U.S. Congress, U.N. experts, and the Amnesty International, and above all by the people of Iran that Ebrahim Raisi should stand trial before international tribunals for crimes against humanity and genocide. He played a key role in the 1988 massacre of as many as 30,000 political prisoners in Iran, a majority of them MEK members.
The planned September 21, 2022, demonstration calling for the prosecution of Ebrahim Raisi organized by the Iranian-Americans across from the UN building to coincide with Raisi’s speech, is expected to be the largest ever of such protests over the years.
As Iranian-American scientists, academics, and professionals who are deeply concerned about the suffering of the Iranian people under the brutal governing regime in Iran, we ask that you stand with us and deny entry visas to the United States for Iranian regime’s President Ebrahim Raisi and his delegation to attend the United Nations General Assembly’s 77th session in New York this September.
Most respectfully,
Signatories:
The PDF version of the letter with the full names of the signatories can be accessed at the following link:
