Arabic press review: Lawsuit filed against Iran president in US over 1988 executions
Iran: Opposition files lawsuit against Raisi in New York
An Iranian opposition group announced on Thursday they had filed a lawsuit with a court in New York against President Ebrahim Raisi, accusing him of committing "crimes against humanity” in 1988 during the mass execution of political prisoners.
According to the Saudi Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) accused Raisi, president since August 2021, of committing crimes of “torture and murder” against Iranian opponents in the late 1980s when he was at the Public Prosecutor's office.
The lawsuit claims that 30,000 members of the Iranian opposition were unlawfully killed in the notorious Evin and Gohardasht prisons in Tehran in 1988.
The lawsuit says that Raisi was a member of the "Death Committee" with three other judges when they ordered the implementation of thousands of executions and torture against members and sympathisers of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) organisation, the predecessor of the NCRI.
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Two people who were allegedly subjected to torture, along with another person whose brother was executed, filed the lawsuit before the court in New York last week. The court is scheduled to hold a preliminary hearing to consider the lawsuit on 15 November.
"The lawsuit was filed against Raisi in his capacity as a person exercising powers granted to him by the Iranian government," said Steven Schneebaum, the lawyer assigned to the case.
The NCRI, which says it has support from 50 members of Congress, called on the US administration to prevent Raisi from visiting the US and delivering a speech before the United Nations General Assembly next September.
Qatar World Cup expects $6bn revenues
Nasser Al Khater, CEO of Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022, has said that Fifa estimates the tournament's revenues could reach $6bn, according to the Qatar News Agency.
Qatar will host the biggest football tournament in the world from 20 November to 18 December. It will be the first Arab and Middle Eastern country to host the World Cup.
Khater denied reports about the alleged surge in home rental prices in Qatar during the World Cup period. He claimed that "there are hotel rooms whose price does not exceed $80 [292 Qatari riyals] per night, and there are other luxury residence places that reach $5,478 [20,000 riyals] per night. Everyone will find the price that is fit for them."
As for ticket sales, he said: "It witnessed a great turnout, which surprised Fifa officials."
He added that "tickets for the Mexico-Argentina match were the highest in terms of sales, while the match between Saudi Arabia and Argentina came in second place, and tickets for the two matches were totally sold out”.
Jordanian women's political engagement
A study by the Jordanian Women's Union Association said that 94 percent of Jordanian women do not participate in any party activities, while only four percent are members of political parties, according to a report published by the Jordanian Al Ghad newspaper.
The study showed that only 1.5 percent of Jordanian women had previously taken part in partisan activities, and 11 percent had participated in general unions, which means that the vast majority of Jordanian women do not participate in political action.
The study said that 43.5 percent had participated in non-governmental organisations and associations, according to Al Ghad.
The study indicated that the percentage of women who participated in the municipal elections was 33 percent, compared with 66.7 percent who stated that they did not take part.
The researcher who conducted the study, Afaf Al-Jabri, said the percentage of female participation rises significantly in the parliamentary elections, to about 54 percent of all women eligible to vote. Women who live in cities had the lowest participation rate in the parliamentary elections, at 49 percent.
The study concluded that these figures do not reflect the weak political participation of women, but rather a position on participation in politics and the electoral processes.
A 'collective novel' about Syrian revolution
A group of volunteer Syrian writers is working on writing a collective novel on the Syrian revolution based on events documented by an independent organisation, according to the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper.
The group, supervised by Syrian writer George Kader, consists of seven writers who were scattered by the "war conditions" to different continents around the world.
Kader said that “the writing team, after listening to the testimonies that I selected for them from the huge archive, reproduced the testimonies of the Syrian man who fought a bitter struggle with life, and with the parties to the armed conflict themselves, in a narrative form that allows the transmission of these testimonies from their own experience to the world of literature and the novel, in a way that enables us, in the end, to produce the narrative of the Syrian person, in the face of the narratives of the Syrian regime and the Syrian opposition”.
Kader explained that although this is only a voluntary project, about 60 Syrians had applied to participate.
*Arabic press review is a digest of news reports not independently verified as accurate by Middle East Eye.
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