Dr. Massoud Alimohammadi was the victim of a targeted murder in Iran on January 12, 2010. The government of Iran alleges that he was assassinated by Israel and the United States due to his participation in Iran’s nuclear program. According to the journal Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dr. Alimohammadi’s field of study was quantum physics, a field entirely distinct from nuclear physics. We believe that Professor Mohammadi was killed because he peacefully expressed his political views on Iranian elections.
The wanton attack on Professor Mohammadi was a violation of internationally recognized human rights, including the “right to life, liberty and security of person” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3, adopted in 1948 with Iran’s approval). It is a violation of Iranian law and of Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, signed by Iran in 1975, which calls on governments to protect the rights of the public to the benefits of science and of scientific cooperation.
In 2008, the Iranian government picked Dr. Alimohammadi to represent Iran to an international scientific facility being built in Jordan, the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Scinece and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME). Because of the international implications of this assassination for science and scientists, we urge the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), and its subsidiary, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUAPAP), to press for a thorough, impartial, and internationally sanctioned investigation of Dr. Mohammadi’s death.