After Switzerland’s president Guy Parmelin congratulated the Islamic Republic of Iran’s designated president Ebrahim Raisi, the Swiss foreign ministry declined Friday to openly condemn the Iranian regime’s sponsorship of terrorism, antisemitism and Holocaust denial.
In response to a series of detailed The Jerusalem Post press queries sent last week to the Swiss foreign ministry, Pierre-Alain Eltschinger, a ministry spokesman said with respect to Iranian regime antisemitism and Holocaust denial that” Switzerland maintains a critical dialogue with Iran on all issues related to human rights and international law, as it does with many countries with a disputable record.”
Eltschinger did not define what a “disputable record” and what "critical dialogue" mean.
He added that” Holocaust denial, but also Holocaust distortion are criminal acts in Switzerland. The Federal and Cantonal governments are doing their utmost to combat them, as well as all forms of antisemitism, including taking part in active part in relevant international organizations.”
The former US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Elan Carr stated that Iran is the “world’s chief trafficker in antisemitism” and that “antisemitism isn’t ancillary to the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is a central foundational component of the ideology of that regime, and we have to be clear about it, and we have to confront it and call it out for what it is.”
The Anti-Defamation League’s CEO ,Jonathan Greenblatt, testified before the House Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism in 2020 and said at the hearing that Iran’s regime is the top state-sponsor of Holocaust denial and antisemitism. Greenblatt wrote in Newsweek in late June that " Raisi, played a hands-on role in promoting The Protocols as part of a sustained campaign to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish people." The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was "a 19th century forgery by Russian intelligence services...designed to scapegoat Jews for the empire's hardships," wrote Greenblatt.
When asked if the Swiss government agrees with the United States State Department’s classification of the Iranian regime’s as the worst international state-sponsor of terrorism, Eltschinger said that” Switzerland condemns terrorist acts wherever they occur. It participates in international efforts to fight and prevent terrorism, including within the framework of the United Nations. It implements UN Security Council sanctions concerning ISIL (Da'esh), Al-Qaida, and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities.”
Switzerland represents US diplomatic interests in Iran because the US broke off relations with Iran's theocratic state after the regime took US diplomats and personnel hostage in 1979.
Markus Spoerndli, a spokesman for the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, told the Post that “Switzerland is implementing sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions and EU decisions. The sanctions were imposed due to Iran's nuclear activities and human rights violations.”
The Post asked Markus Spoerndli, who serves as the spokesman for Guy Parmelin, to send its queries about the Iranian regime’s Holocaust denial, antisemitism and terrorism to Parmelin.
Parmelin declined to respond.
When asked about the Islamic Republic’s executions of gays and lesbians, Eltschinger said “Switzerland addresses the issue of death penalty with the Iranian authorities for all categories of persons condemned to capital sentence which includes the LGBTQ+ community.” Iran's regime has executed 4,000-6,000 gays and lesbians since its 1979 Islamic revolution, according to a 2008 British WikiLeaks cable.
Raisi was involved in the execution of an Iranian man in 2019 who was executed for violating the Islamic Republic’s anti-gay law. The US government sanctioned Raisi for his role in carrying out the mass murder of at least 5,000 Iranian dissidents in 1988 and for his role in the killings of 1,500 Iranian protestors in 2019.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Post that “The fact is Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz had the courage and integrity to directly and personally denounce Iranian Holocaust denial at a joint press conference in Vienna with the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. The Swiss government should do no less.”
Cooper added that the Swiss government should specifically denounce the Iranian regime’s “denial of the Shoah and the regime’s litany of human rights violations on behalf of the people of Switzerland. The failure to do that and the congratulatory message to the incoming Iranian president who supervised the murder of innocent people cannot be justified in the name of international diplomacy.”