November 19, 2021
Oberlin College in Ohio has announced it has cleared an Iranian-born faculty member accused of lying about mass political executions in Iran during the 1980s and of making antisemitic statements, according to a student news-paper report.
Professor of Religion Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, who served as Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations from 1987 to 1989, had been accused of concealing the 1988 killings of thousands of dissidents. His accusers made their charges in an October 2020 open letter, signed by families of the victims and two faculty members.
Later, reports of Mahallati’s declaring that “Palestine is an Islamic territory” under “occupation by Zionist usurpers” surfaced online, as well as statements disparaging the Baha’i faith — prompting the university to confirm that his past comments and conduct were under review.
The Ohio liberal arts college said its investigation did not find evidence supporting the allegations over the 1988 killings of opposition members, mainly from the Mojahedin-e Khalq, or antisemitic comments, the Oberlin Review reported Friday.
“Oberlin deeply empathizes with the pain and suffering caused by the executions in Iran,” the statement read. “After becoming aware of the allegations against Professor Mahallati, Oberlin initiated its own process to determine their validity. After consulting a number of sources and evaluating the public record, the College could find no evidence to corroborate the allegations against Professor Mahallati, including that he had specific knowledge of the murders taking place in Iran.”
The Review noted that the statement did not address Mahallati’s alleged anti-Baha’i statements.
Signatories to the 2020 open letter said that the 1988 mass killing stood out for its “depravity and cruelty” among human rights abuses committed by Iran over the years, citing one estimate that at least 3,800 were executed. It quoted an Amnesty International report alleging that Mahallati, as Iran’s permanent representative to the UN, “denied the mass executions in a meeting with the UN Special Representative on the situation of human rights in Iran,” and falsely claimed that killings had occurred “on the battlefield,” in wartime.
Mahallati has previously rejected those allegations, writing in the Oberlin Review, “I categorically deny any knowledge and therefore responsibility regarding mass executions” in Iran when was serving at the United Nations. “There was not a single communication from Tehran to Iran’s UN embassy informing Iranian diplomats of those incidents.”
