January 23, 2018
In a letter to the president of the European Parliament, ADL says an invitation to a senior member of the Iranian regime to speak in Brussels was troubling, given his history of promoting terrorism and past participation in a conference in Tehran in 2014 promoting Holocaust deniers.
January 22, 2018
Mr Antonio Tajani
President of the European Parliament
Rue Wiertz 47
1000 Brussels
Honorable President Tajani,
I write to express our deep regret that Mr. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chair of the Iranian parliament’s Committee for Foreign Policy and National Security, will speak tomorrow at the European Parliament.
Mr. Boroujerdi is a senior member of the regime which supports Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, threatens to destroy Israel, is a state-sponsor of anti-Semitism, and is currently violently repressing its own citizens. While the European Commission has legitimate reasons to be an interlocutor with the Iranian regime, the Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs decision to invite Mr. Boroujerdi for “an exchange of views” legitimizes him as someone whose views are worthy of consideration.
The European Parliament has taken many positive steps to address anti-Semitism, but Mr. Boroujerdi’s appearance will be a step backwards. Just one day before you commemorate the victims of the Holocaust at the parliament, your institution will host a man who participated in a conference in Tehran in 2014 to promote Holocaust deniers.
On the agenda of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, a discussion about “targeting the financing of terrorism” is right before the “exchange of views” with Mr. Boroujerdi, the same man who a year ago paid respects at the grave of Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s former leader of global terror operations. At Mughniyeh’s grave, Mr. Boroujerdi praised “the lives of these fighters and Mujahideen and heroes.” Mughniyeh was implicated in the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, the bombings in Buenos Aires of the Israeli embassy in 1992 and the AMIA Jewish community center in 1994, and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.
In July 2017, with reference to relatives of Palestinian terrorists, you said the European Parliament “must not become a platform for terrorism, nor should the agenda or guests put the reputation of this institution at risk.” Tomorrow the parliament’s reputation will be put at risk.
I hope you will intervene to prevent Mr. Boroujerdi from appearing at the parliament. Should Mr. Boroujerdi nonetheless appear at the Committee on Foreign Affairs, I would ask that you encourage the committee members to raise these issues of Mr. Boroujerdi’s support for terrorism and involvement in Holocaust denial.
Sincerely,
Jonathan A. Greenblatt
CEO and National Director
Anti-Defamation League