| Iraj Mesdaghi | |
| Birth Date: | 31 October 1960 |
| Birth Place: | Tehran, Iran |
| Nationality: | Iranian |
| Occupation: | Writer, Human rights defender |
| Website: | http://irajmesdaghi.com |
Iraj Mesdaghi (Persian: ایرج مصداقی; born 1960) is an Iranian writer and human rights activist. He has lived in Stockholm, Sweden since 1994. He supported the People's Mujahedin of Iran before becoming one of its critics. Mesdaghi has written several books and articles on the 1988 mass executions of political prisoners in Iran.[1]
Mesdaghi was born in 1960 in Tehran, Iran. As a teenager, he traveled to the United States to work with the Confederation of Iranian Students to revive the student movement unit. He returned to Iran after the Iranian revolution. He was imprisoned in the Ghazelhasar, Evin and Gohardasht prisons for over 10 years, from 1981 to 1991, on charges of supporting the PMOI Organization.[2]
While in prison, Mesdaghi survived the 1988 mass executions of political prisoners in Iran. After being released, he was forced to flee from Iran to Sweden in 1994. In Sweden, he continued his work advancing human rights in Iran through work with the UN Human Rights Council, the International Labor Organization, and the European Parliament. He is currently independently engaged in political activity and research.
Mesdaghi is also a member of the "Committee for the Observation and Use of Iranian Justice Data", headed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. The Committee helped verify information in a leaked file from the Iranian Judiciary which revealed the extent of the governments political arrests, imprisonments, and executions from 1978 to 2009. [3] [4]
Mesdaghi was featured prominently in the documentaryThose Who Said No, directed by Nima Sarvestani. The film documents an international investigation of mass executions of political prisoners in Iran in the 1980s. It was shown at the IDFA.[5]
On November 9, 2019, the Swedish police apprehended Hamid Noury at Arlanda Airport after he was lured to Sweden by Iraj Mesdaghi. In 2019, Mesdaghi was contacted by an acquaintance of Noury and together, they began to devise a plan to lure Noury to Sweden. They wanted to bring him to Sweden, where he could be tried for the alleged crimes under universal jurisdiction, a legal precedent allowing for serious crimes to be tried in Swedish courts, regardless of where in the world they were committed. They arranged his flight ticket and led him to believe that he was coming to Sweden for sightseeing, a cruise, meeting women, and partying. Iraj Mesdaghi shared the plan with international law experts and lawyers, who in turn contacted the Swedish police. When Noury landed at Arlanda Airport in November 2019, he was arrested. He has been held in custody since then, and the crimes he has been accused of were examined in one of Sweden's largest war crime trials.
In early 2021, allegations of torture, inhumane treatment, murder, and war crimes were brought against Noury. He served as a deputy prosecutor and reportedly played a significant role in the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners. The charges against him became possible after the Swedish judicial system was granted permission to apply a so-called universal jurisdiction for crimes against international law, allowing prosecution of perpetrators regardless of where the crime was committed and regardless of the nationality of the perpetrators or victims. On July 14, 2022, the Stockholm District Court sentenced Hamid Noury to life imprisonment, and after serving the sentence, deportation for life.[6]
Aside from publishing books, Iraj Mesdaghi has also published hundreds of articles and reports on human rights and disclosure against Islamic Republic policies.[7]