UN agency disavows ex-Iran envoy's NGO after 'Post' query

• Date: 30 March 2021
• Published date: 30 March 2021
• Author: BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

"We can confirm that, despite the use of our logo on the organization's website, the Friendship for Sustainability Center (FSC) is NOT a participant of the UN Global Compact. We also do NOT have any relationship or affiliation with Mr. Mohammad Jafar Amir Mahallati, who seems to be the director of FSC," Dan Thomas, the spokesman for United Nations Global Compact, told the Post by email on Monday.

Thomas said that "we are in the process of doing" a request that Mahallati delete the UN Global Compact logo from his website.

UN Global Compact states its mission is "to mobilize a global movement of sustainable companies and stakeholders to create the world we want."

Mahallait is a tenured professor of Middle East and North African studies at Oberlin College in Ohio.

Amnesty International asserted in a 2018 report that while serving as the Iranian regime's ambassador to the UN from 1987-1989, Mahallati denied the existence of the Islamic Republic's massacre of innocent Iranian political prisoners in 1988. It is believed that Iran's regime executed at least 5,000 political prisoners during the bloodbath that Amnesty said amounted to ongoing "crimes against humanity."

According to the website of Mahallati's FSC, the Friendship Ambassadors Foundation is listed under the rubric of "Collaborations."

However, the FAS disavowed the connection with Mahallati in an email to the Post. "The Friendship Ambassadors Foundation has no record of any collaboration with Mohammad Jafar Mahallati or the Friendship for Sustainability Center. We were not aware that he or the FSC listed us as a collaborator until we received your message. We are in the process of contacting FSC to inquire about the alleged collaboration and request immediate removal of FAF's name/logo from the website."

The UN Global Compact agency and the Friedrich Schiller University in Germany are listed as "Partners" of Mahallati's FSC.

Katja Barbara Bär, director of communications for Friedrich Schiller University, told the Post that "Mr. Mahallati is not known in our house and there was no partnership at any time." She added that "The owners of the webpage have been informed, that they are using a fake logo of the UNESCO Chair on Global Understanding for Sustainability. With that they want to give the impression of being a partner or part of the UNESCO Chair on Global Understanding for Sustainability or UNESCO itself in the overall impression of the website."

She continued that "This impression is fraudulent and...