A senior diplomat for the European Union (EU) was spotted at the swearing-in ceremony of incoming Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on August 5.
The diplomat, European External Action Service (EEAS) Secretary-General Enrique Mora, can be seen sitting alongside leaders from Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Everything wrong & morally bankrupt with the #EU in one photo:
Senior EU official (@enriquemora_) sitting alongside leaders of Hamas & Hezbollah at swearing-in ceremony of new #Iran President and mass murderer #Raisi!
Remember this next enlightened EU lecture on human rights! pic.twitter.com/BY9sKVA177
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) August 6, 2021
Jewish groups condemned Mora for attending the inauguration.
“A picture for the PHOTO HALL OF SHAME,” American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris tweeted, adding that this is “the same EU that purports to protect human rights, combat terror & fight Jew-hatred!”
A picture for the PHOTO HALL OF SHAME.
Hamas, Hezbollah & PIJ leaders at inauguration of Iran’s new president & serial human rights abuser.
Just behind them: Senior #EU official (w/ red tie).
The same EU that purports to protect human rights, combat terror & fight Jew-hatred! pic.twitter.com/Ec5fOtDtmr
— David Harris (@DavidHarrisNY) August 6, 2021
The Simon Wiesenthal Center also tweeted, “European Union – Your presence legitimizes a new president with blood on his hands.”
European Union – Your presence legitimizes a new president with blood on his hands. Sitting adjacent to #Hamas and #Hezbollah? Next time pic.twitter.com/EdYiFFfCXG
— SimonWiesenthalCntr (@simonwiesenthal) August 5, 2021
Several Iranian human rights groups also signed a joint statement that read, in part: “The EU is well aware of the fact that this man presided in 1988 and 2019 over the killing and torture of many thousands of people. We urge the EU … to address crimes against humanity, rather than standing with those who commit the crimes.”
A spokesperson for the EEAS told the Euronews television network that Mora was there because “it is crucial to engage diplomatically with the new administration and to pass directly important messages” to ensure that the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is fully implemented.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote in a June op-ed for Newsweek that Raisi “was one of four judges who, in the late 1980s, oversaw the execution of thousands of members of Iranian opposition groups, including women and children. One analyst recently wrote that his subdued personality and criminal record evokes Hannah Arendt’s notion of the banality of evil.” He added that Raisi, as head of the Astan Quds Razavi Foundation, promulgated antisemitic propaganda from “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” throughout the country.
Iraj Masadagi, a former political prisoner in Iran, told the Israeli public television network Kan that Raisi once told him “they don’t want to have any more political prisoners. He said that we want to solve the ‘problem,’” rhetoric that Masadagi likened to “the final solution that Hitler made for the Jews.”
