| Indict President of Iran for incitement to genocide, holocaust denial and support for terror |
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| Written by Resolution of Scholars for Peace in the Mid-East | |
| Tuesday, 22 July 2008 | |
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SPME reaffirms its call for an indictment of the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for his repeated statements urging the destruction of Israel. Such statements are direct and public incitement to genocide, which are prohibited by the Genocide Convention and is defined by the International Criminal Code as a crime against humanity.The evidence for the case for indictment includes his repeated and openly inflammatory use of hate language and pseudo-medical metaphors (“Israel is vermin, ….a filthy corpse,… a cancer”) and incitement to genocide (“wipe Israel off the map”), his public denial of the Holocaust (a “myth” created by Europeans to justify the creation of a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world”), and support for Hezbollah and Hamas, terror organizations committed to Israel’s destruction.These actions threaten international peace and security, in violation of Article 99 of the UN Charter.
Hate language and incitement to genocide by a national leader and his accomplices are recognized warning signs of impending genocide. These actions prompted the indictments, prosecution and conviction of Rwandan journalists, radio broadcasters and politicians by the ICT-R and the Supreme Court of Canada. In Iran’s case, this incitement is alarming because it is coupled with terrorist attacks by proxy, a clear and present danger that genocidal acts will be committed-not with machetes, as was the case in Rwanda, but with nuclear-tipped missiles and other WMD. Iran continues to deceive and defy the International Atomic Energy Agency and has ignored four Security Council Resolutions warning it to stop nuclear enrichment. Its government continues to ruthlessly persecute minority religious groups, women, dissidents, and homosexuals, using public executions, stoning, flogging, torture, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, themselves early warning signs of genocide. Security Council Resolution 1674 (the Responsibility to Protect) - R2P) - states that protection of human life overrides the sovereignty claims of a state whose actions demonstrate genocidal intent. Governments and the world community have both the right and the responsibility to enforce this principle to prevent genocide, in keeping with the Precautionary Principle (PP). The PP states that when there is uncertainty concerning the occurrence of an event with potentially catastrophic effects on human health and safety, the costs of inaction are usually far greater than actions to prevent its occurrence.
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