Oberlin College professor, former diplomat under fire for 1988 mass killings in Iran

OBERLIN — He is known for preaching peace and friendship. But now Oberlin College religion professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati has been accused of taking part in crimes against humanity. A letter sent to college President Carmen Twillie Ambar on Wednesday calls for Mahallati's termination. It is signed by 626 people, including former political prisoners in Iran, the families of prisoners who were executed and human rights activists. Mahallati, who now serves as the Nancy Schrom Dye Chair in Middle East and North African Studies at Oberlin College, was Iran's ambassador to the United Nations from 1987 to 1989. The letter said his role was to "obfuscate and lie to the international community about mass crimes perpetrated by the Iranian regime" — specifically, the killing of thousands of political prisoners in 1988. That year, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered political prisoners to be subjected to sham trials by so-called "death commissions," according to Amnesty International. "Based on no more than a few questions about their political or religious beliefs, prisoners who had already faced (albeit inadequate) trials and sentencing, who had served several years in prison, and who had been subjected to gruesome torture were sent by the Death Commission to hang," the letter said. Iranian authorities have treated the killings as state secrets, and rare leaks over the past three decades have resulted in reprisals, according Amnesty International. The letter sent to Oberlin College accuses Mahallati of failing to use his position at the United Nations to draw attention to the massacre. It also claims he denied the killings during a meeting with the U.N. Special Representative on human rights in Iran. Amnesty International also said in 2018 that Mahallati was among the senior officials and diplomats who "were actively involved in denying the mass killings in media interviews and exchanges with the UN to shield those responsible from accountability." Lawdan Bazargan, a graduate student who teaches classes at California State University of Fullerton, said her brother Bijan was one of those put to death. In 1981, at age 22, he was charged with supporting a communist group, selling its newspaper, taking part in its gatherings and donating pocket money. A protege, he left Iran to study medicine in England at age 16 and later returned to help his family, Bazargan said. "He wanted to help people. And he had these ideas that the Islamic government didn't like," she said. She remembered Bijan playing with and caring for his sisters, buying toys for them instead of spending money on himself. One day, he was called to meet a friend and never returned. Bazargan said the Iranian government arrested Bijan, convicted him in a minutes-long hearing without family or lawyers present and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. In the six years that followed, Bijan was denied adequate food and lived in cramped quarters. He didn't have fresh air, hot water or access to outside information. In July 1988, prison visitations were halted. According to testimony from Bijan's friends, he was hauled in front of a panel on Aug. 27 and asked, "Do you believe in God? Do you pray? Do you believe in Imam Khomeini?" Bazargan said her brother responded, "I will not answer to the inquisition, and the inspection of my beliefs." A few minutes later, the 29-year-old was hanged to death. "We were preparing ourselves for his freedom, but instead, a few months later, the prison officials told us that they had killed him," Bazargan said. Months later, after repeat visits to the prison, Bijan's parents were told by prison guards that their son was an apostate and he had been killed. "My dad said, 'Give me his body or show me his grave so we can have a proper mourning ceremony for him,'" Bazargan said. "They said, 'We told you that he was a heretic, so he can not have any mourning ceremony, and we will not reveal his grave. You cannot have any ceremony for him.' My dad came back home, looking 20 years older." She said her mother died of cancer in May, still searching for answers about why the Iranian government killed Bijan, and why it refuses to confess to the mass executions. "I have this book about Oberlin fighting injustices and advancing social movements, and knowing Oberlin was anti-slavery," Bazargan said. "That a city like that is home to Mohammad Mahallati is just not acceptable." Mahallati joined Oberlin College in 2007. Since then, he has become known as the "professor of peace." Mahallati founded the annual Oberlin Friendship Festival, developed a religion course called "Ethics of Friendship: Perspectives in Religion, Politics, Economics and Arts" and launched the Oberlin Friendship Initiative to promote international, interfaith and intercultural justice and peace. He has also been a regular part of peace protests held at noon each Saturday on Tappan Square. "What is really normal is friendship," Mahallati said in an April 2019 talk at Kendal at Oberlin. "What is totally (not) normal is hatred, indifference and war." In a question-and-answer with college staff the same month, he talked about the Iran-Iraq War. According to Oberlin College, he played a key role in ending the eight-year war during his tenure as ambassador to the U.N. "The Iran-Iraq War was a full-fledged fratricide with no real victor and no measurable gain for either side, especially Iraq — which began the war — presenting a very complex case for just-war theories," he said. "As an Iranian diplomat, I worked with the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations, under Javier Perez de Cuellar, to spend its conflict-resolution expertise on bilateral and multilateral negotiations with the goal of limiting the scope of the Iran-Iraq War and searching for avenues of peace between the two neighboring nations." Mahallati has also taught at Princeton, Georgetown, Yale and Columbia universities as well as Kerman University in Iran. Calls to Mahallati's office at Oberlin College went directly to voicemail Wednesday, but the system did not allow messages to be left. Oberlin College declined to comment on the letter and its accusations. Contact Jason Hawk at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com.