Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, former Iranian regime ambassador to the United Nations, who became embroiled in scandal over serious accusations of helping justify the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran and charges of sexual abuse and assault during his teaching career in the United States, is now engaging with students in Iran.
His biography on the website of the Majd Research Center describes him as a “full professor of religious and peace studies at Oberlin College, USA.”
He also co-organized a conference from May 26 to 28 at the University of Tehran titled “The Sixth Annual Conference on Peace and Conflict Resolution.”
Following Mahallati’s dismissal from Oberlin College in November 2023, the university administration removed all traces of his presence from its website.
Oberlin College in Ohio removed him from his position as professor of religious studies after revelations of his potential role in covering up crimes against humanity during the 1988 mass executions ordered by Ruhollah Khomeini, in which 30,000 political prisoners—mostly members and supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK)—were executed. His past also includes allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse of a Columbia University student in the 1990s.
In September 2023, the U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into Oberlin College and Mahallati to determine whether they had allowed antisemitism to spread on campus and whether Mahallati had promoted Hamas in his classes.
During his teaching years, the Oberlin academic community referred to him as the “professor of peace” until Amnesty International exposed his role in covering up the 1988 political prisoner massacre. Mahallati went from being called “professor of peace” to the “Butcher of Oberlin.”
According to the University of Tehran conference program, he chaired one session and delivered a speech titled “The Complex Nature of Human Conflicts and the Necessity of Multifaceted Discourses for Their Management and Prevention from the Perspective of the Quran.”
Other speakers at the conference included Ali Akbar Mousavi, previously introduced as a senior advisor and postdoctoral fellow at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University in Virginia.
Mahallati appears to be attempting to restore his lost credibility. A website for his works was launched in 2024, though it contains no contact information.
The site still claims he is a “full professor of Islamic studies at Oberlin College.”
Oberlin refused to meet with Iranian-American members of the coalition investigating Mahallati.
Although the Tehran University conference was ostensibly about peace, Hossein Simaii-Sarraf, the Iranian regime’s Minister of Science, used the platform to call for the destruction of Israel. He stated: “It is hoped that to eradicate injustice, human catastrophes, and the savagery of the Zionist regime, all Muslim nations and free people of the world will unite more than ever.”
For years, Iran’s regime has attempted to infiltrate Western countries by sending intelligence agents under the guise of journalists, human rights activists, or academics.
