A Plea From the Iranian People
Editor’s Note: As world leaders gather at the United Nations this week, Akbar Ganji, Iran’s leading political dissident, sent this open letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. As Iranians face the threat of military attack from the United States and economic sanctions from the UN Security Council because of Iran’s nuclear activities, they also suffer severe repression from their own government. Ganji’s plea for Ban to reprimand the Iranian government for its human rights abuses and provide moral support for its citizens has been endorsed by more than 300 public intellectuals, writers and Nobel laureates from around the world. Read their names here.
To His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations,
The people of Iran are experiencing difficult times both internationally and domestically. Internationally, they face the threat of a military attack from the US and the imposition of extensive sanctions by the UN Security Council. Domestically, a despotic state has–through constant and organized repression–imprisoned them in a life-and-death situation.
Far from helping the development of democracy, US policy over the past fifty years has consistently been to the detriment of the proponents of freedom and democracy in Iran. The 1953 coup against the nationalist government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq and the unwavering support for the despotic regime of the Shah, who acted as America’s gendarme in the Persian Gulf, are just two examples of these flawed policies. More recently the confrontation between various US administrations and the Iranian state over the past three decades has made internal conditions very difficult for the proponents of freedom and human rights in Iran.
Exploiting the danger posed by the US, the Iranian regime has put military-security forces in charge of the government, shut down all independent domestic media and is imprisoning human rights activists on the pretext that they are all agents of a foreign enemy. The Bush Administration, for its part, by approving a fund for democracy assistance in Iran, which has in fact been largely spent on official institutions and media affiliated with the US government, has made it easy for the Iranian regime to describe its opponents as mercenaries of the US and to crush them with impunity.
At the same time, even speaking about “the possibility” of a military attack on Iran makes things extremely difficult for human rights and pro-democracy activists in Iran. No Iranian wants to see what happened to Iraq or Afghanistan repeated in Iran. Iranian democrats also watch with deep concern the support in some American circles for separatist movements in Iran.
Preserving Iran’s territorial integrity is important to all those who struggle for democracy and human rights in Iran. We want democracy for Iran and for all Iranians. We also believe that the dismemberment of Middle Eastern countries will fuel widespread and prolonged conflict in the region. In order to help the process of democratization in the Middle East, the US can best help by promoting a just peace between the Palestinians and Israelis, and pave the way for the creation of a truly independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel.
A just resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the establishment of a Palestinian state would inflict the heaviest blow on the forces of fundamentalism and terrorism in the Middle East.
Intolerable Conditions
Iran’s dangerous international situation and the consequences of Iran’s dispute with the West have totally deflected the world’s attention and especially the attention of the United Nations from the intolerable conditions that the Iranian regime has created for the Iranian people. The dispute over the enrichment of uranium should not make the world forget that, although the 1979 revolution of Iran was a popular revolution, it did not lead to the formation of a democratic system that protects human rights.
The Islamic Republic is a fundamentalist state that does not afford official recognition to the private sphere. It represses civil society and violates human rights. Thousands of political prisoners were executed during the first decade after the revolution without fair trials or due process of the law, and dozens of dissidents and activists were assassinated during the second decade.
Independent newspapers are constantly being banned and journalists are sent to prison. All news websites are filtered and books are either refused publication permits or are slashed with the blade of censorship before publication. Women are totally deprived of equality with men and, when they demand equal rights, they are accused of acting against national security, subjected to various types of intimidation and have to endure various penalties, including long prison terms. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, stoning (the worst form of torture leading to death) is one of the sentences that Iranians face on the basis of existing laws.
A number of Iranian teachers, who took part in peaceful civil protests over their pay and conditions, have been dismissed from their jobs, and some have even been sent into internal exile in farflung regions or jailed. Iranian workers are deprived of the right to establish independent unions. Workers who ask to be allowed to form unions in order to struggle for their corporate rights are beaten and imprisoned. Iranian university students have paid the highest costs in recent years in defense of liberty, human rights and democracy. Security organizations prevent young people who are critical of the official state orthodoxy from gaining admission into university, and those who do make it through the rigorous ideological and political vetting process have no right to engage in peaceful protest against government policies.
If students’ activities displease the governing elites, they are summarily expelled from university and in many instances jailed. The Islamic Republic has also been expelling dissident professors from universities for about a quarter of a century. In the meantime, in the Islamic Republic’s prisons, opponents are forced to confess to crimes that they have not committed and to express remorse. These confessions, which have been extracted by force, are then broadcast on the state media in a manner reminiscent of Stalinist show trials.
There are no fair, competitive elections in Iran; instead, elections are stage-managed and rigged. And even people who find their way into Parliament and into the executive branch of government have no powers or resources to alter the status quo. All the legal and extra-legal powers are in the hands of the Iran’s top leader, who rules like a despotic sultan.
Human Rights
Are you aware that in Iran political dissidents, human rights activists and pro-democracy campaigners are legally deprived of “the right to life”? On the basis of Article 226 of the Islamic Penal Law and Note 2 of Paragraph E of Section B of Article 295 of the same law, any person can unilaterally decide that another human being has forfeited the right to life and kill them in the name of performing one’s religious duty to rid society of vice. Over the past few decades, many dissidents and activists have been killed on the basis of this article, and the killers have been acquitted in court.
In such circumstances, no dissident or activist has a right to life in Iran, because, on the basis of Islamic jurisprudence and the laws of the Islamic Republic, the definition of those who have forfeited the right to life (mahduroldam) is very broad.
Are you aware that in Iran, writers are lawfully banned from writing? On the basis of Note 2 of Paragraph 8 of Article 9 of the Press Law, writers who are convicted of “propaganda against the ruling system” are deprived for life of “the right to all press activity.” In recent years, many writers and journalists have been convicted of propaganda against the ruling system. The court’s verdicts make it clear that any criticism of state bodies is deemed to be propaganda against the ruling system.
A Plea for Intervention
The people of Iran and Iranian advocates for freedom and democracy are experiencing difficult days. They need the moral support of the proponents of freedom throughout the world and effective intervention by the United Nations. We categorically reject a military attack on Iran. At the same time, we ask you and all of the world’s intellectuals and proponents of liberty and democracy to condemn the human rights violations of the Iranian state. We expect from Your Excellency, in your capacity as the Secretary General of the United Nations, to reprimand the Iranian government–in keeping with your legal duties–for its extensive violation of the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights covenants and treaties.
Above all, we hope that with Your Excellency’s immediate intervention, all of Iran’s political prisoners, who are facing more deplorable conditions with every passing day, will soon be released. The people of Iran are asking themselves whether the UN Security Council is only decisive and effective when it comes to the suspension of the enrichment of uranium, and whether the lives of the Iranian people are unimportant as far as the Security Council is concerned. The people of Iran are entitled to freedom, democracy and human rights. We Iranians hope that the United Nations and all the forums that defend democracy and human rights will be unflinching in their support for Iran’s quest for freedom and democracy.
Akbar Ganji is an Iranian journalist and dissident who spent six years in prison for exposing rights abuses committed by Iran’s fundamentalist regime. His work has appeared in pro-democracy newspapers across Iran, most of which the government has since shut down. He is also the winner of the 2007 John Humphrey Freedom Award for his fearless commitment to human rights, democratic development and nonviolence.
© 2007 The Nation
Something that Idiot Bush should read before attempting to ‘liberate’ another country that does not want its help.
A good statement but what aside from international condemnation, what kind of intervention is possible? Sanctions are there but only worsen the conditions for Iranians. It seems that doing everything possible to open that society up and undermine its ability to oppress would be the way to go.
Rather than the economic and military threats that serve to strengthen reaction, the opposite (including rewarding of reform) would strengthen popular resistance and move the government toward reform and allow the space for popular resistance.
Something that all the apologists for the current Iranian regime need to read. I agree with Jaded Prole, the Iranian people need to know that they will not be attacked, and that freedom in Iran will be encouraged. Good luck to them all.
Everyone should recall that Ahmadinejad’s predecessor, Khatami, _was_ a reformist and led a reformist majority party. The US could have egaged with this govenment and led to considerable concessions on the part of Ayatollah Khameni. But the US (under Clinton) chose to demonize Khatami anyway - no doubt due to his criticism of Israel and Iran’s desire to remain independent from US/Israeli hegemony.
Presumubly the only Iranian leader satisfactory to the US would be a US-fiendly dicitator (like Mubarak, the Saudi royalty, or Musharraf) who kisses US-corporate and Zioni$t ass every day.
So, the US has NO role to play in the Iranian’s struggle. They should keep out.
Ok so Iran is a dictatorship and the Iranian people are suffering under an oppressive regime. Man that’s tough.
I’m an American.
A long time ago, we used to be the World’s cop. When you put out a 911 call like that we used to come try to help. We used to stand for justice and freedom. We fought hard to stop the kind of suffering you are going through.
Those days are over for the time being.
We have serious domestic issues that are preventing us from establishing any kind of foreign policy. Our only diplomacy comes with a bomb attached to it. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Greed and bigotry have taken over our society. The hatred in our land is pushing us towards civil war.
We have failed you. We’ve failed on the world stage.
Good luck Iran. I hope that some other nation can somehow relieve some of your pain. All we know how to do is bring it.
It’s all so clear now… Cheneybush want to turn American into Iran!
Except for the stoning. No way we’re giving up “the chair” or lethal injection. That’s just crazy talk…
the Iranian regime has been… imprisoning human rights activists on the pretext that they are all agents of a foreign enemy.
They probably are loyal BUSHIES!!
The writer is specifically addressing the U.N., not the U.S.
As dysfunctional as that body is, it is the only logical place to make his plea.
Boy I know how those ayatollahs feel. Let us open an embassy and before you know it there’ll be KFCs, McDonalds and Pizza Huts on every corner of the bazaar and soon Wal-Marts and Targets at every hilltop and vale around Tehran. I don’t blame them them for quarantining themselves against us. (I do realize that WE cut the ties to Iran.)
On the other hand oh bearded and crusty ones, there will come a time when your insistence on a strict and narrow cultural identity for all your people becomes such a screaming anachronism that the world will blink, stretch and yawn, and you’ll be gone. How can you continue to systematically repress half of your population, and your better half at that?
The U.S. does not want to help, it wnats to exploit. Always and everywhere. The ayatollahs know this, as do most Iranians. When Bush speaks of freedom and democracy he is speaking of the freedom of big money/power to open new market oportunities, and the kind of democracy we practice here - the best that money can buy.
Mr. Ganji you are indeed between a rock and a hard place, as are we all.
Reasonable… unfortunately, FOX news and others hear such pleas and says, “Never fear, we will free you and your resources shortly.”
We in the US need to write a plea to the UN to help end the dictatorship in the US!
How would that sound… let’s see, we could borrow an important line straight out of the above text: “There are no fair, competitive elections in the US; instead, elections are stage-managed and rigged…”
Beware the stage-managers of this coming war. The new “Hitler with Bad Hair” is a cultural demon and all criticisms of Iran’s repressive gov’t, arguably similar to the one in the US, is potential gloss for the next war against “Islamic Fascism”….
MR GANJI - Most Americans support your efforts to bring some kind of rule-by the people to Iran.
Those few Americans who don’t support your efforts in Iran (or who just pretend to support such efforts,like President Bush, for dishonest strategic gain), are the same kind of Rule by Decree people you are opposing there and we are opposing here in the USA.
Please understand and believe this!
All clear thinking people around the world recognize that the lack of functioning democracy in the USA and other highly-armed nations, is the biggest obstacle to world peace, universal human rights, and environmentally-sound ecomonic betterment for humanity.
I would also like to suggest that absolutist religious systems entrenched in a nation’s popular culture (like yours), and/or elitist economic systems entrenched in a nation’s political culture (like ours) are the common enemy of decent people everywhere.
As you know, reforming these kinds of dysfunctional human systems has never been easy for decent people - anywhere or at any time. But, as your electronic ability to communicate with decent people in the US shows, there are new possibilities we can take advantage of, to better understand and help each other in a common goal.
I hope you’ll continue online communications with your friends in America. It’s unlikely, now, that the irrational power forces we commonly face will be able to effectively stop us average people from reaching out to each other, building common, people-to-people ground between us, and ultimately displacing the institutionally corrupt power that keeps this groaning world in needless chaos and bondage.
This is the kind of Iranian that we need to empower. I think he fears a similar fate in Iran as we have created in Iraq. That may happen, but Im willing to bet things wont happen twice. Like the looting, the complete breakdown of law and order. It seems to me that the system in Iran is a little more concrete and effective not to let that happen as we saw in Iraq. It really depends on the US and how they orchestrate dealing with Russia and China. There is to much risk involved in creating another Iraq, where we continue to keep oil flowing without meters. When we perpetuate breakdown and thrust imperial consildated actions that have furiated the world, like Paul Bremers rule 81. When I look at the imperial behavior of Iraq, I want to leave America. But Bush has no stake to claim on Iran so he wants to time this so that the democrates inherit the attack just in time. Meanwhile the nuclear facilities are probably constructed now with some incredible fall out consequences. We should have knocked out those facilities a year ago. Bush is an oil pirate.
Im sure Ganji means well and is genuinely interested in the welfare of Iranians etc but people like Ganji are the exact kind of ‘fodder’ we need in our inevitable collision with Iran and the ‘case for war’ we will eventually set up (unless we can unplug the Dick’s pacemaker).
Its too bad he chose to address the U.S. … eh .. sorry .. U.N. as that organization is breathing its last.
Its sad and amusing to see this parade of World Leaders who seem to believe the U.N. actually stands for something. They probably missed the part where we ripped its guts out …
canuckchuck makes a good point — the irony is that this administration’s goal would be to Iranize the US more than to Americanize Iran. Iran is a good example of what can happen when religious zealots have power. Still, if left alone, it would work through its dark time. Most Persians are not religious fanatics.
like many of the posters - i had to remind myself that the comments were directed at iran and not the us. i kept getting confused.
firstly, it is a thoughtful and compelling document, and should be binding to us all in solidarity.
ahmadinejad has badly outflanked bush this week and in doing so he has distracted us from his own record - which speaks of high crimes indeed.
it seems as if ahmadinejad has popular support and i think that its misleading to come away with that impression. its just that, in contrast to bush, he looks good.
that’s appalling.
what is disarming though is that someone can just retort: “yeah, well he’s not as bad as bush.”
touche.
in losing the spelling bee to ahmadinejad bush has shown himself to be the most incompetent, dimwitted president.
in the history world.
ever.
or, as homer simpson says: for infinity plus one.
Vince Lawrence spot on post. That’s been my experience in my travels from the KFC outside the Potala Palace in Tibet to the Kuwaiti man in Ghutrab eating a crispy creme in an American style mall. You’d think we’d have better exports then our fast-food.
If we don’t attack Iran soon, before the depression hits, we won’t have enough money to have a war. If we don’t have a war, we will have a depresion. If we bomb Iran really good, with a few small nukes to relly scare the civilians, we can then send in our ground troops unopposed and build an American embassy complex, with all of the good thngs we Americans enjoy, like twinkies, Pepsi and crispy cremes.
We can do that with Air Power in a few days, then we can help their downtrodden citizens have a real American style Democracy, teach them Christianity and help them stabalize their country and lower the price of oil. We need the oil or we’ll have a depression. ___ Don’t you people get it? Damn, after Iraq, anyone with half a brain would think you idiots here would wake up. Read that lettr the people of Iran sent to the Secretary-General of the UN. Those people need our help.
Ganji:
‘A just resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the establishment of a Palestinian state would inflict the heaviest blow on the forces of fundamentalism and terrorism in the Middle East.’
Sorry Ganji. These things are non-negotiable. Back to prison for you.
The U.S. government doesn’t care about the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, or Iran. The U.S. government has killed millions of Iraqis and God knows how many Afghans. Do you think they care about Iranians? Now they want to carve up Iraq the same way they did Yugoslavia. And guess who’s doing the dirty deal? The same scumbag that broke up Yugoslavia - Richard Holbrooke.
These people don’t believe in freedom or democracy. Real democracy is seen by them as a threat - a threat to their power. We don’t have elections in this country. The president is chosen beforehand by the CFR. The so-called election is just a dog and pony show to make people in this country think that they live in a democracy. Every president that has been elected recently has been approved by the CFR. Our government is a club run by the elites for the elites. The rest of us aren’t members of the club and never will be.
Kem -
They’ll greet us as liberators! They will rush out with open arms and thank us for saving them.
Inside every vietnamese er…iranian is an American trying to get out…
Mr Ganji:
Has it ever occurred to you that your letter may not actually benefit either the cause of democracy or the Iranian people? The Decider will overlook the first couple of paragraphs in your letter, but would use the rest of it as a good reason to attack Iran.
‘Iranian workers are deprived of the right to establish independent unions.”
Big deal, Regan kicked out national air controllers and messed up the unions too.
“There are no fair, competitive elections in Iran; instead, elections are stage-managed and rigged”.
This one confuses me. Is he talking about the U.S. or Iran?
I am no fan of any fundamentalist regime, and consider myself to be idealistic, and a lover of democracy, if I can find one. But the truth must be told.
I believe the articles and sections that Mr Ganji quoted comes from the Constitution of the Islamic republic of Iran. In the heat of the revolution, an overwhelming majority approved the Constitution, perhaps by 95%. Maybe people made a mistake, but that’s another matter. Their Constitution did not come about as singing statements by a unitary executive.
jaded perol said:
Sanctions are there but only worsen the conditions for Iranians. It seems that doing everything possible to open that society up and undermine its ability to oppress would be the way to go.
and other guys say other things to admit what Ganji said or against him, but no one said what Iranian people can do.
please tell whats your idea that iranian can do to have democracy in Iran due to what you see in this article.
After reading Saila’s remarks, re-read the letter. A past tactic of Bush and other administrations is to produce “foreign patriots” telling us an attack is justified to end a criminal regime. That is not Mr. Ganji’s letter. No true nationalist would want their country savagely attacked - possibly with nukes - to accomplish any end, and it seems the writer wants to avoid this at all costs.
That was the effect of this letter, to point up that we are ALL so between a rock and a hard place. Lost my equilibrium too.
I doubt we can understand the depth and disparity of feelings of Iranians. The Iran/Iraq war (198?,) in which Uncle Sugar either quietly aided and otherwise did not interfere with Sadam, claimed the lives of 800,000 Iranians, so I have read.