On Friday, April 26 at 12:30 p.m., the Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA) hosted a demonstration on Nassau Street outside of FitzRandolph Gate to call for the removal of Princeton University research fellow Seyed Hossein Mousavian due to his former involvement in Iranian government in the 1990s and early 2000s. While AAIRIA only has nine members listed on their website, about 40 people gathered to demand that Mousavian be fired.
Mousavian faced controversy in Nov. 2023 following the beginning of an investigation by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The investigation followed allegations that Mousavian was using his role at the University to advance Iranian interests. He was hired in 2009 as a Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist at the Program on Science and Global Security.
Mousavian was a prominent figure in the Iranian government prior to his 2007 arrest for allegedly leaking information to European members of the 2003-5 nuclear negotiation team, of which he was a part. Most notably, he served as the Iranian ambassador to Germany from 1990 to 1997.
In 1992, three Iranian-Kurdish opposition leaders and their translator were killed at the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin. The assassins were believed to have links to Iranian intelligence and a member of the Iranian intelligence service, Kazem Darabi, was sentenced to life in prison for the killings. However, protesters believe Mousavian was also involved, citing an article from the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, which claimed that a witness and co-founder of the Iranian secret service Abolghasem Mesbahi incriminated Mousavian.
In a written statement to the ‘Prince,’ Mousavian cited the German court ruling about the Mykonos restaurant assassinations that did not implicate him. He wrote, “I have not been accused or condemned by any country’s court or any administration worldwide being involved or informed about any assassination,” and noted that the Iranian court is the only court from which he has faced charges.
He also added, “After the court verdict all European Ambassadors were recalled to their capital and simultaneously Iran recalled all its ambassadors from all EU countries. All EU and Iranian ambassadors including me returned back after a few months.” He added that he often travels to all European countries, writing, “My last trip to Germany was in February 2024.”
Amid chants of “fire Mousavian” and “not on our campus, not in our name,” the ‘Prince’ spoke to protestors about their motivations for attending.
Jared Stone ’25 appeared to be the only Princeton student at the demonstration.
When asked if he could point the ‘Prince’ to other students present, Stone said, “People are coming by, but this is happening outside of campus. It’s not an official student organization organizing it.”
Stone sent an email to residential college listservs on the morning of Friday, April 26 inviting students to attend a “pro-Iranian people, anti-regime rally.” The email was sent with the display name “Students for Iranian Freedom.” According to the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students website, Students for Iranian Freedom is not an official student organization.
Lawdan Bazargan, an activist and former Iranian political prisoner, who organized the protest, reached out to Stone personally to ask him to spread the word due to his involvement in Iranian advocacy. Bazargan stated that she reached out to the Princeton Tory after the ‘Prince’ declined to publish her drafted article. The Princeton Tory decided to interview her.
“[Stone’s] other political views doesn’t concern us,” Bazargan added.
She added that the Princeton Iranian Student Association (ISA) was not involved.
“We sent one email and didn’t follow up with the Iranian organization because there is not enough time in the day,” she said.
“We are not a very big organization … Everybody you see here somehow got affected by this government,” Bazargan explained. “We are not like [the Iranian Government], they have the money and the organization and everything.”
She further confirmed that Stone was the only Princeton student involved in the protest.
In a written statement to the ‘Prince,’ ISA Vice President Bita Jalalian ’25 wrote, “Our organization is meant to be a safe space on campus for Iranian students to simply focus on community building, cultural sharing, and support of Iranian students (and other interested students) through community on campus, and so expressing any specific stance related to these protests on behalf of us and our members falls beyond our scope.”
AAIRIA successfully applied for a permit from the municipality of Princeton over a month before the protest, and as such were permitted to use amplified sound, including megaphones, according to Bazargan. When asked about the ongoing “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” she replied, “We have nothing to do with Israel-Palestine. We are a bunch of Iranians.”
23 placards laid by Mousavian protesters.
Olivia Sanchez / The Daily Princetonian
On the lawn in front of Nassau Hall, the protesters laid placards in rows — mimicking a graveyard — for the 23 dissidents killed in Europe during his time as Iran’s ambassador to Germany.
Frank von Hippel, a senior research physicist, Professor Emeritus of Public and International Affairs, and a close colleague of Mousavian, wrote in an email to the ‘Prince,’ “AAIRIA has been recycling the debunked claim that Mousavian was somehow responsible for the assassination of some Kurdish dissidents in Germany in 1992 while Mousavian was Iran’s ambassador there.”
In an additional comment to the ‘Prince,’ von Hippel wrote, “...it is important for your readers to understand what this is about: Mousavian is being targeted because he is an important voice for diplomacy and against war between the United States and Iran. The groups that are attacking him are for war with Iran and want to silence his voice.”
The ‘Prince’ also spoke to Majid Mohammadi, an Iranian-born, 2007-08 fellow with the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asian.
“I’m ashamed,” Mohammadi said of Mousavian’s presence at Princeton. “I love Princeton. I have always enjoyed being a Princeton alumni. So this is personal for me.”
“[Mousavian] is a CEO of the Iranian terror machine in Europe. And after that, he was rewarded. This is a reward for him, to be a faculty member in Princeton,” Mohammadi added.
Artemis Danehkar also attended the protest and alleged in an interview with the ‘Prince’ that the Iranian embassy “is not functioning as an embassy … They spy on people, they spy on dissidents.” She added that during Mousavian’s tenure as the Iranian ambassador to Germany, Iran “had a project to eliminate all [dissidents].”
Von Hippel added that Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which was found to have carried out the killings by the German court, “later sent assassins after Mousavian himself in order to rupture German-Iran relations.”
When asked about the protest, the University declined to comment.
Olivia Sanchez is an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from New Jersey and often covers the graduate school and academic departments.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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