Two rights groups said Monday they brought a legal complaint in France against the boss of Iran's Paralympic body, accusing him of torture and crimes against humanity.
Ghafour Kargari, president of his country's national paralympics committee for next year's Games, is currently in France for a meeting with his counterparts from other participating countries, the organisers told AFP.
The two rights groups say Kargari is a former commander of the Quds Force, a branch of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) which runs intelligence and covert military operations in Iran and abroad.
France should never have granted him a visa for the meeting, said Emmanuel Daoud, a lawyer for the French collective Femme Azadi and Swedish NGO House of Liberty who brought the complaint.
"The IRGC and the Quds group have been at the forefront of the violent repression of peaceful movements for democracy, civil rights and equality of men and women in Iran," they said in a document filed with France's anti-terror prosecutors and seen by AFP.
Kargari's visit to France is "an insult to all the victims of Iranian repression, first and foremost women", Daoud told AFP.
The associations also say Kargari is a founder of the Iran-backed Islamic Resistance Movement of Azerbaijan which opposes the government in Baku.
Femme Azadi and House of Liberty say Kargari "must have participated in, or been an accomplice to, acts of barbarism and torture perpetrated by those groups in Iran, Azerbaijan and more generally in the Caucasus and Central Asia".
As a senior figure in Iran's military hierarchy Kargari participated in the conception and the implementation of the groups' strategies which, the associations said, meant his actions "could also be qualified as crimes against humanity".
The most recent protest movement in Iran was sparked by the death last year in police custody of Mahsa Amini after she allegedly violated dress rules.
Hundreds of people, including dozens of security personnel, died during demonstrations during the autumn, and thousands were arrested.
The 2024 Summer Paralympics are scheduled for August 28 to September 8 and will feature over 4,000 athletes.
