Obama, Iran and Human Rights

While the human rights situation in Iran is increasingly deteriorating, President Obama cancels financial support of a well-known human rights institution in the USA.

On October 6, 2009, the American newspaper The Boston Globe reported that the Obama administration had canceled financial support to the well-known Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. The center published 12 reports in English and Persian, within which was documented coerced confessions, mass executions in Iranian jails, the brutal procedures of parallel-acting intelligence, and the arrest of journalists and bloggers. Also found in these publications are the violations of minority rights and the targeted killings of the regime in exile.

The Boston Globe assumes that the unsubstantiated cut may indicate a shift in the Obama administration’s approach to democracy promotion. Roya Boroumand, the founder of one of the leading Iran-focused human rights organizations, the Boroumand Foundation, which among other things documents the people executed in Iran, says in response to the American newspaper: “If the rationality is that we stop funding human rights work, so as not to provoke the Iranian government, then that is absolutely the wrong message.” That would indicate that a true belief in human rights was lacking; that the American government supported it only when it was convenient, according to Roya Boroumand.

Priorities of Human Rights Work Have Not Changed

The press department of the U.S. Department of State, when asked the question of why three million dollars of funding for this important human rights work was cut, responded on October 7, 2009 by stressing that the budgetary priorities for the region had not changed.

The budget is supposedly there for the civilian population to support human rights in Iran. The press department spokesperson for the State Department could not provide specifics on the details of any reduction in funding to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.

Yet the American Deputy Secretary of State, James Steinberg, warned on October 6, 2009 of the “terrible repression” of the Iranian regime. President Obama has stressed that the Iranian people have a “universal right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.” If the Iranian government wants the respect of the international community, they themselves must respect the rights of their own population.

New Death Sentence for the Democratic Movement

During the G-5+1 negotiations with Iran in Geneva, human rights issues should have been discussed. Iran has agreed to partially shift its uranium enrichment to Russia, but critical observers agree that Iran only wants to buy time. Iran had agreed in Geneva to send about 80 percent of its (Western known) stock of around 3.5 percent enriched uranium to Russia and to France. There the uranium should be enriched to just below 20 percent.

The massive human rights violations are continuing. As the exiled Iranian news agency, Gooya, reported on October 7, 2009, the first death sentence was pronounced for one of the more than 100 detained demonstrators who had protested against the obvious election fraud. This was the royalist, Mohammadreza Ali-Zamani.

Human Rights Policy or Nuclear Deal

Prof. Payam Akhavan, a Canadian international law professor, not only teaches at McGill University, but is also co-founder of IHRDC and a Director of the Human Rights Institute, where funding has just been eliminated. In an email to a Brussels-domiciled think tank, the European Foundation for Democracy, Prof. Akhaven wrote: “President Obama was my classmate at Harvard University. He believes more in dialog than in confrontation, which is in fact a good thing. But if the sole and existing basis for dialog is the nuclear program, then the message sent to Iran will be that systematic human rights violations will have no consequences.”

Whatever the motivation for wavering support by the U.S. government for human rights organizations, Iran is getting the message that a compromise to nuclear negotiations “would be the excusing of the repression of the democratic movement in Iran.” Such a step would discourage the progressive forces in Iran who have long been the “sole basis for peace and stability in Iran. An authoritarian regime, which rules by force, is a threat both to its people and also to its neighbors,” says Prof. Akhavan.

Human Rights Should Not Be a Victim of Dialog

One of the Iran experts for the European Foundation for Democracy, Joshua Goodman, has also criticized the cancellation of funding for important Iranian human rights organizations in the U.S.: “The decision to end funding for human rights organizations, which document the crimes of the Iranian regime, comes at a time when the work of such organizations is particularly necessary. This decision raises a number of questions.” Organizations like IHRDC and the Boroumand Foundation are respected due to their vital work. Goodman added that: “the failure of the U.S. government to explain its decisions has led to intense speculation. And even now it still has a speculative character, if it is assumed that the administration has sacrificed human rights in order to advance the nuclear agenda. If it is true, it would be a very disturbing strategic decision and would send a terrible message to the Iranian people.”

The Iranian-American historian, Abbas Milani, is Director of Iranian Studies at the renowned Stanford University. In an interview with the exiled newspaper, Roozonline, Prof. Milani warned that human rights would become the victim of the Iranian-American negotiations.

Firstly, Milani compares the cleansing and Islamization of Iranian universities since the 1979 revolution with the Stalinist purges in the Soviet Union; for example, the attempt made to introduce a Marxist social science or to “proletarianize” biology. Similarly, the Khomeinian rulers in Iran would like to Islamize everyone. Nonetheless, Milani foresees a democratic future for Iran. Overcoming the “despotic” rule of the clergy is a prerequisite for democratization. Then Iran’s economic problems, unemployment and women’s issues could be solved. He recalled that 60 to 70 percent of the new middle class is comprised of university-educated women. The society has a great potential for a democratic Iran.

Against this, the revolutionary leader, Ali Khomeini, builds his power with the support of the Revolutionary Guard and the Bassiji. Khomeini can only rule by force, therefore, his time has passed. The solution is a republic, whose legitimacy comes from its people. In fact, the rule of the clergy in Iran is based on a Khomeinian interpretation of Islamic law as God’s law.

Milani is opposed to any interference by foreign powers in the affairs of Iran and is of the opinion that the Russian government is the most interfering in the internal affairs of Iran. Abbas Milani favors economic sanctions similar to those that were used against the apartheid regime of South Africa, because of the growing discontent of the population against the repressive regime.

Milani, at the same time, favors direct dialog between Iran and the U.S. That way the U.S. government would not be able to disregard human rights claims.