While the Iranian President of the 2024 National Paralympic Committee, Ghafoor Kargari, is currently visiting France as part of the preparation for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, two associations filed a complaint against him in Paris on Monday August 28. They accuse him of torture and suspect him of crimes against humanity, learned Agence France-Presse (AFP) from a source familiar with the matter.
The issuance of a visa by the French public authorities, then its arrival, is “an affront and an insult to all the victims of Iranian repression, starting with women”was indignant Emmanuel Daoud, lawyer for the French collective Femme Azadi and the Swedish NGO House of Liberty, the two associations at the origin of the complaint.
Mr. Kargari, a member of the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is currently in the Paris region as part of the seminar for heads of mission of the Paralympic committees, confirmed the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (COJO ) to the news agency.
“An insult to all victims of Iranian repression”
The two associations present Mr. Kargari, born in 1962, as a “former commander and prominent member of the Al-Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” (IRGC), the ideological army of the Islamic Republic.
“The IRGC and the Al-Quds group have been at the forefront of the violent repression of peaceful movements fighting for democracy, civil rights and gender equality in Iran”details the complaint, consulted by AFP and filed with the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office.
The latest protest movement in Iran was triggered in September 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died after being arrested by the morality police who accused her of not having respected the obligation of the veil.
Hundreds of people, including dozens of members of the security forces, were killed during the protests in the fall of 2022, while thousands of people were arrested, accused by the authorities of participating in “riots” fomented by Western countries.
Mr. Kargari is also presented in the complaint as one of the founders of the Islamic Resistance Movement of Azerbaijan, “an Azerbaijani Shia Islamist armed group supported and financed by the IRGC”in opposition to the power in place in this neighboring country of Iran.
Because of his functions, the complainants believe that Mr. Kargari “necessarily participated in or was complicit in the acts of barbarism and torture perpetrated by these groups in Iran, Azerbaijan and more generally in the Caucasus and Central Asia”.
Then hierarchical and military superior, the current president of the National Paralympic Committee is accused of having “participated in the design and implementation of the policy and strategy of these two groups, which could also qualify his actions as crimes against humanity”.