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Ahmadinejad: Criminal non grata

By Irwin Cotler
The Jerusalem Post
September 21, 2011

The Iranian president should be placed on a "watchlist" by concerned countries, preventing their entrance as "inadmissible persons."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's impending visit to the United States and the UN is a cruel parody of law and justice that will put us on the wrong side of history.

Ahmadinejad will enter the US despite being inadmissible under American law. He will address the United Nations General Assembly despite being in violation of its UN Charter and international law. And, he will be indulged – even feted – by universities, institutes, and the media, thereby sanitizing his crimes and mocking the suffering of the Iranian people.

This charade – repeated annually since 2007 – ignores and undermines basic principles of domestic, international, and humanitarian law.

First, President Ahmadinejad belongs on the US “Watchlist" of persons barred from entry – those who “aid terrorists … persecute religious minorities … or commit or incite to genocide” are prohibited from entering the United States. Indeed, President Obama issued a proclamation just last month barring entry for persons “who participate in serious human rights and humanitarian law violations and other abuses.”

Indeed, the evidence of Iran's and Ahmadinejad’s criminality on each of these counts is clear and compelling. In the matter of international terrorism, the recent US State Department Annual Report lists Iran as a leading state sponsor of international terrorism. Ahmadinejad’s Iran recruits, trains, finances, instigates and arms its terrorist proxies such as Hamas and Hizbullah, whose platforms and policies are replete with genocidal calls.

Under Ahmadinejad, Iran has intensified its persecution and prosecution of religious minorities, especially the Baha’i – its largest religious minority – whose members are subject to harassment, repression, torture, imprisonment, and execution. As for Christians, whose persecution has also accelerated, even praying together is a criminal act.

Ahmadinejad’s violations of the Genocide Convention’s prohibition against "direct and public incitement to genocide" – symbolized by the parading the streets of Tehran of a Shiab-3 missile draped with the emblem “Wipe Israel off the map” – is cause alone for exclusion.

Ahmadinejad’s systematic and widespread assaults on the rights of his own people, evident in the pervasive and persistent assault on women, students, workers, dissidents, journalists, and academics – and those who would defend them – are tantamount to crimes against humanity against his own people.

Instead of being granted a podium at the UN General Assembly, Ahmadinejad should be the object of a criminal indictment. Simply put, a person who pursues the most destructive weaponry in violation of Security Council resolutions; who has already committed the crime of incitement to genocide in violation of international law; who is complicit in crimes against humanity; who engages in massive domestic repression against his own people – the whole assaultive of the basic tenets of the UN Charter – such a person belongs in the dock of the accused, not at the world’s most watched podium. . . . [More]
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