Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan being escorted out of the General Assembly by the UN’s police service, 19 September, 2023. (Photo: Screenshot)

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan was detained by UN police on Tuesday after protesting Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s address to the international body’s General Assembly in New York.

Video provided to The Algemeiner by Israel’s mission in New York showed one uniformed and one plain-clothed security officer from the UN’s Department for Safety and Security gripping Erdan by the elbow and leading him out of the General Assembly hall after Erdan had protested Raisi’s speech by holding a sign saying, “Iranian women deserve freedom now!”

“It is a disgrace that member states stay to listen to a mass murderer,” Erdan said in a statement. “It should not be possible for a murderer with blood on his hands to receive a platform here at the UN. I left the speech to make it clear that the State of Israel stands by the Iranian people. I call on the international community to stop the madness and prevent murderers and antisemites from coming and speaking here at the UN.”

Speaking on the first day of speeches to open the new session of the annual UN General Assembly gathering, Raisi’s at times rambling 35-minute speech began with a discourse about the sanctity of the Quran in an apparent reference to recent Quran burnings in Sweden. He went on to claim that Iran is a defender of women’s rights and that the mass anti-government protests across Iran over the past year were the product of the United States “fabricating lies and fake reports” and that “realities from Iran were censored throughout the world in order to negate the truth.”

The UN reported last year that the Iranian regime “violates and undermines women’s dignity and fundamental human rights, including the right to equality and non-discrimination.”

In his speech, Raisi only briefly addressed Israel, saying that “the occupying regime in Jerusalem is seen as the perpetrator of much of the violence in the region” and calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Raisi’s address to the UN was greeted with protests in nearby Dag Hammerskold Plaza, with hundreds of demonstrators calling for “revolution” and “regime change.”

The Iranian president’s visit to the UN and his itinerary in New York have raised questions about whether one of the heads of a regime listed by the US State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism should be welcomed in the United States.

On Wednesday, Raisi will address the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a New York-based think tank, at an off-the-record event at his hotel near UN headquarters. That invitation has prompted a protest letter from 180 human rights experts and organizations calling on CFR to cancel the event, citing Raisi’s role as part of a so-called “death commission” that oversaw the killings of thousands of political prisoners without trial in 1988, while he served as deputy prosecutor of Tehran, the Iranian capital.

“While we appreciate the CFR has a forum for promoting international dialogue, there can be no justification for inviting a perpetrator of crimes against humanity to speak at your panel,” the letter says. “By lending your platform to Raisi, who should be prosecuted for crimes under international law, you will only fuel the culture of impunity that exists in Iran.”

Signatories to the letter include former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and 11 Nobel laureates.

American politicians have also been skeptical of Raisi’s visit to New York, with some Republican senators introducing legislation last week that would have barred the State Department from issuing him a visa.

“Ebrahim Raisi actively supports terrorism and wants to kill American citizens,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in a statement introducing the bill. “Although I’m not surprised he wants to reunite with the many other murderers and thugs who claim membership at the United Nations, Raisi should not be allowed into the United States. Our bill would accomplish what the Biden administration appears unwilling to do: ban Raisi’s entrance into the country and protect our national security.”