Ghafour Kargari's Trip to France; Two European NGOs File Complaint

Two non-governmental organizations from France and Sweden filed a complaint against Ghafour Kargari, the head of Iran's Paralympic Committee and a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with the French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office following his trip to Paris. The Freedom House organization based in Sweden described Kargari on its Instagram page as 'one of the commanders of the Quds Force active in the Caucasus and Central Asia close to Qassem Soleimani.' Kargari traveled to France on August 24 to participate in the heads of delegation meeting for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. The French organization 'Femme Liberté' and the 'Freedom House' organization accused this military commander of committing 'torture crimes' in their complaint filed on September 6. Lawyer Hamid Sabi, in an interview with Voice of America, emphasized that Kargari is subject to prosecution due to his membership in this military entity, which is sanctioned by the European Union. The Quds Force is listed among the sanctioned entities by the United States and the European Union, and the IRGC is also on the U.S. terrorist groups list. According to Hamid Sabi, the Quds Force has played a significant role in committing numerous crimes in Iran and the region. Iranian media have not reported on the duration of Kargari's stay in France, but the Freedom House organization stated that 'such individuals have no place either in Europe or in Iran.' This Swedish NGO also warned all democratic countries, including France, about the serious consequences of issuing visas for such individuals. French officials have not yet responded to this complaint. In recent years, the travel of Iranian government officials to Western countries and Canada has faced widespread criticism from opponents of the Islamic Republic and human rights activists. Protests against the presence of at least four Iranian officials in Belgium, Sweden, and Canada have made headlines. The trip of Alireza Zakani, the mayor of Tehran and former head of the student Basij, to Belgium this year led to the resignation of the international relations officer of the city of Brussels and the repeated summons of Belgium's foreign minister to the country's parliament. The presence of Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi, a former health minister, in Canada in July of this year followed protests from opponents of the Iranian regime, resulting in his being banned from entering Canada. In December 2022, a year after the trip of Morteza Talai, the former police chief of Greater Tehran, to Canada, the country's officials added his name to the sanctions list. Hamid Nouri, a former deputy prosecutor, was also tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019 after entering Sweden, following complaints from several former political prisoners and families of victims of the mass executions of 1988, for his involvement in these executions.