asymmetrical haircuts

Our most faithful listeners will have by now realised that we are very interested in universal jurisdiction, since we have talked about it multiple times (here, here, here and here). This time we are going to dissect a very recent case which started being heard in Sweden in August.

An Iranian 60 year old citizen was apprehended in Stockholm in late 2019, and has now to defend himself from very heavy war crimes accusations. He allegedly took active part in the so-called 1988 Iranian massacre, when over 5000 political prisoners were summarily executed in the span of 3 months.

A trial of this kind, which could never take place in Iran under current conditions, has the potential of showing the way in prosecuting these kinds of crimes committed in the country, crimes which families still suffer the consequences from, having being denied closure for decades.

To discuss this case and its implications for citizens of Iran and members of its diaspora, we turned to Gissou Nia – Board Chair of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center and Head of Strategic Litigation at the Atlantic Council – and Aida Samani – Legal Advisor to Civil Rights Defenders, an NGO based in Stockholm – who are both closely monitoring the trial.

We will keep tabs on the situation and further comment on it in due time.

New episode also means new recommendations! Gissou is just about to start Thieves of State by Sarah Chayes; plus, for the listeners interested in learning more about Iran and its quashing of political dissent, she suggests Assassins of the Turquoise Palace by Roya Hakakian and Black Wave by Kim Ghattas. Aida instead offered a couple of lighter suggestions: she is currently reading On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong and re-watching Succession on HBO (which Janet also endorses).

This podcast has been published as part of a partnership between Asymmetrical Haircuts and JusticeInfo.net. JusticeInfo is an independent website covering news on justice related to mass violence, so as to promote reconciliation and fight impunity in societies facing serious crises. It is a project of Fondation Hirondelle.

We did a quick justice update for you on the start of the first ever trial of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers. The case is against a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Amry (KLA), Salih Mustafa.

We have spoken about the Kosovo Specialist Chambers before with Maj Grasten and Una Hajdari in previous podcasts if you want more details.

As promised here is a link for those Dutch speaking listeners who want to go see Alma Mustafic’s Srebrenica genocide play Gevaarlijke Namen (Dangerous Names) now in Dutch theaters.