Iran: President Ibrahim Raisi may have hoped to avoid a build-up of anger in his country while attending the UN General Assembly in New York this week.

However, as Iran is rocked by brutal nationwide protests as a result of Friday's death of 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, who was beaten up by police for wearing a hijab "inappropriately", it is unlikely that Raisi would escape anger. will be able to.

Iranian dissidents and Westerners have been taken hostage by the regime in Tehran, however, threatening to serve them with a trial in the city and accusing them of having a personal hand in abuse and torture.

Human rights lawyer Shaheen Milani filed the lawsuit in the Southern District of New York on behalf of alleged victims of Raisi's crimes, and is being supported by the National Association for Democracy in Iran.

As a result of plaintiffs' allegations that Raisi either directly ordered or materially aided the torture, the Iranian president is subject to a civil trial under the US Torture Victims Protection Act.
NUFDI Policy Director Cameron Khansarinia introduced the plaintiffs during a press conference at a private club in midtown Manhattan.

“We are here to announce and complete a historic, federal, civil lawsuit against Ibrahim Raisi.

The plaintiffs in this case, former Iranian hostages, former Western hostages and Iranian dissidents, are banding together in an unprecedented way to advance the cause of justice.

"Raisi is in New York and it is important that the media is covering him as well as his victims," ​​Khansarinia told Arab News on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

We want it to be noted in the US legal system that Ibrahim Raisi's victims are opposing him, that he is a criminal, he is being accused of torturing people, and that in our opinion, he is doing so. He is the one. is guilty of. It is important to set a new legal precedent for such cases.

“Second, we are giving a voice to the Iranian people and their victims, allowing them to speak for the first time because for so long they have been silenced by the regime and, unfortunately, often by those in the West, so it is today. This is an important opportunity for them to speak their truth," he continued.

Four of those victims—Mehdi Hajti, a city councilor—and a dissident; Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a British-Australian academic and former regime hostage; Hamid Babai, Belgian-Iranian academic and former hostage; And Ahmed Batebi, a former political prisoner, shared the nuances of his experiences during the press conference, which was also supported by NUFDI.

Naveed Mohebbi, who was once the youngest journalist ever detained by the regime in Tehran, joined them. The primary plaintiff in the case, Milani, insisted that Raisi was the sole target of the civil case, not the Islamic Republic of Iran as a whole.

Moore-Gilbert spoke of the "gross abuse" and "physical and psychological torture" she had taken prisoner. When Raisi was found guilty, sentenced, dismissed on appeal and sent to prison, she was the head of Iran's judicial system.

She claimed that he held her "ultimately accountable for the injustice and abuse" she experienced.

The judges in his case, according to him, were "apparently puppets" of the government and "incapable of taking independent decisions". She said she didn't even know she had a lawyer until a few weeks before the hearing.

Speaking via a video link, Moore-Gilbert claimed she was "unable to present evidence during the trial" and was unable to follow the proceedings because they were entirely in Persian. Based on "ridiculous allegations" of espionage, he received a 10-year prison sentence.

He claimed that one of the many examples of cruel and unjust punishment was his immediate appointment to solitary confinement for seven months for exposure to infectious diseases and refusal of medical care.

Moore-Gilbert said of Raisey, "he is ultimately responsible for my misconduct," adding, "I am participating in this lawsuit under TVPA to hold Raisey responsible for an injustice: my own. ..

Another academician who had been wrongfully imprisoned in Iran, Babai, described the miserable conditions there, revealing that the prisoners were not even given cups for water.

He described how he killed other prisoners and how he kept them in a constant state of fear that he would be the next victim. "I was in constant trauma," he said.

According to Mohebbi the Iranians "have suffered continuous trauma over the past 43 years".

In his account of his experiences in prison, he claimed that the entire legal system, where "a defendant's sentence has already been sealed," had worked against him.

"By filing this lawsuit, the survivors and victims of the regime send a very clear message to the butchers of Tehran that you will never be able to break our spirit, our fortitude, and our fight for our human dignity is one that we will not lose," he said.

According to him, the three cases presented in the lawsuit "represent thousands of Iranians whose rights to express justice, their rights to express themselves, and their rights to express their suffering have been taken away," he continued.

I'm here to support the rights of the Iranian people, whose rights are routinely violated by the regime, said Marjam Keypour Greenblatt, a human rights activist and non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, to Arab News. I'm here to support them and ensure that justice is served in places where it isn't often seen.

The ultimate goal of the civil case against Raisi is justice, but achieving this justice—which has been denied to thousands of others—could be challenging.

The TVPA is "the right act to use here because you can seek remedies for crimes that were committed elsewhere," according to Gissou Nia, director of the Atlantic Council's Strategic Litigation Project, in an interview with Arab News.

"The legal team wants to serve process, but assuming he is served, then there will be decisions regarding immunity," she continued. In this particular case, the court would probably take judicial notice and rule that Raisi is shielded by head-of-state immunity if the defendant were the head of state of France or Germany (for example).

The court may decide to seek the State Department's opinion because it's Iran and there are some different exceptions to state immunity as it pertains to Iran under US law. Although it might take some time, there is a chance that the lawsuit will proceed.

However, Raisi is not required to respond to a civil lawsuit, and if he decides not to take part in the legal proceedings, the court might rule against him and in the plaintiffs' favour by default.

The president is ineligible for diplomatic immunity because he is not a part of Iran's permanent mission to the UN. Nevertheless, he is given protection from being served with legal papers while he is at the UN headquarters, in the neighbourhood where it is located, and while travelling to and from his lodging. However, if his New York lodging or any other non-official activities he engages in take place outside the boundaries of the UN district, the legal documents may be served against him.

An ex-prisoner of the Iranian regime named Nizar Zakka told Arab News: "The most crucial aspect of this lawsuit is that the Iranian regime needs to understand that they will be pursued everywhere they go (and) sued until they stop these activities, like hostage-taking, that they have been doing since 1979.”

This week in New York City, the search for those Iranian dissidents and Western hostages who have endured years of unjust detention and are still suffering from physical and mental trauma continues.

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