| "He's just gonna show up -- nuthin' we'll be able to do about it. Honest!" |
Mahmoud Short RoundAhmadinejad on Wednesday.
"Hosting Ahmadinejad at a banquet is not merely morally repulsive: It is illegal and will expose Columbia University and its officers to both criminal prosecution and civil liability to American citizens and others victimized by Iranian- sponsored terrorism," the Tel Aviv-based NGO wrote to the university's President Lee Bollinger last week.
| A neat warning shot across the bow... |
Copies of the letter were sent to US Attorney-General Eric
Inaction JacksonHolder, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr, FBI Deputy Director Sean M. Joyce and FBI Executive Assistant Director Shawn Henry.
"Iran is officially designated under US law as a state-sponsor of terrorism, as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and as a perpetrator of human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal
liberty...
abuses.
Ahmadinejad is Iran's chief executive and personally directs Iran's terrorist and nuclear proliferation activities and human rights abuse," Darshan-Leitner and Tolchin wrote.
Columbia's student newspaper The Spectator reported earlier this month that Ahmadinejad plans to dine with members of the Columbia International Relations Council and Association. The council's vice president, student Tim Chan, said in the Spectator, "Everyone was really enthusiastic," and "they're thrilled to have this opportunity."
Chan told the paper there were no concerns from CIRCA's members about meeting with Iran's president.
Writing on the popular US news and blog website Pajamas Media, the site's CEO, novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon, said, "After having once hosted Iran's President Mahmoud
Short RoundAhmadinejad, they are doing so again -- and this time they are giving the misogynistic, homophobic, Holocaust denying religious fanatic a banquet! The progressive intellectuals of Morningside Heights [the neighborhood where Columbia is located] evidently have a special place in their hearts for state sponsors of terrorism who murder and torture their own citizens with impunity."
Alana Goodman, a blogger for Commentary Magazine, first reported on Shurat HaDin's possible lawsuit. She noted that "Shurat HaDin is the same organization that used targeted lawsuits to block the Gazoo flotilla in July, so it has a history of success with high-profile cases."
Columbia's Spectator reported on Friday that "The university has issued a statement denying any involvement in the dinner," and adding that the news stories "fundamentally misstate the university's role in this unconfirmed possible encounter. Simply put, there never was one. In fact, at no time has there ever been any university event planned or considered involving the president of Iran, nor has there ever been any plan for a dinner involving the Iranian president and President Bollinger."
Though Bollinger criticized the Iranian president as a "petty and cruel dictator" at a debate with him at Columbia in 2007, he was roundly criticized in the media for providing an Ivy League university stage to a major human rights violator.