Back to Brief on Iran
[Excerpts from an article by Arnold Beichman]
No matter how they try -the State Department, the British Foreign Office… - to turn theocratic Iran into a liberalizing Iran, the ayatollah dictatorship confutes them. Western reportage saw in last year's election as Iran's president a so-called dark horse, Mohammad Khatami, as the beginning of a thaw. Unfortunately for this theory, it has been shown over and over again that Mr. Khatami has little power against Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.…
The test for change in Iran will come when the fatwa against Mr. Rushdie is lifted and that will come, as they say in Russia, when a shrimp learns to whistle….
Amnesty International has pointed out that extrajudicial executions are "an affront to the conscience of humanity" and that the fatwa "amounts to a threat of arbitrary deprivation of life." It is also a violation of Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Iran is a signatory… The UN Commission on Human Rights has called on Iran "to provide satisfactory written assurances that it does not support or incite threats to the life of Mr. Rushdie." No answer.
On Sept. 24, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and Iran Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazzi issued a joint declaration which optimists thought might mean that Tehran might lift the fatwa. Within hours, senior government officials led by Mr. Kharazzi, religious figures, student organizations and the state-dominated media denied that there had been any change and, unanimously, affirmed that the fatwa was irrevocable.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran has supplied me with transcripts of this month's TV broadcasts by religious figures. Reading them sent shivers up my back. Here is Mullah Hossein Zarandi, a prayer leader in Western Iran on Oct. 2: "The fatwa is a religious decree, like prayers, fasting and Hajj [journey to Mecca]….If anyone insults the Great Prophet, he must be killed… He will not be spared even if he repents."
And on the same Friday this was the prayer of Mullah Heidari in Southwest Iran: "The Imam's fatwa is like a bullet that has been fired and will continue until it pierces Salman Rushdie's heart. It is unstoppable."
Iran's reach is international. Two
translators of "The Satanic Verses" were attacked in their own countries
in 1991. The Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed and died
immediately. The Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, was stabbed and seriously
wounded but recovered. William Nygaard, the Norwegian publisher of the
book, was fired on three times in 1993 outside his home in Oslo but survived.
It's astonishing that not a single arrest has been made in Japan, Italy
or Norway for these crimes…
Conservatives Maintain Grip on Power After Poll, The Toronto Star, October 25
TEHRAN - Zoya Ahmadi voted with her heart last year… On Friday, Ahmadi voted with her feet. She stayed at home...
Disillusioned by the setbacks of the past year, the 18-year-old university student says she has once again given up on Iranian politics…
"We voted for Khatami because all of us young people thought he was going to give us freedom, but now we regret it,'' Ahmadi (not her real name) said last week...
Now she believes Khatami has become an unwilling accomplice to Iran's hard-liners: "They tell him what to do, and he does it.''
… Khatami… has little to show for his first year in power. Now, a counter-offensive by the religious right has polarized Iranian politics. Instead of a kinder, gentler fundamentalism, Iran sometimes seems at war with itself.
Indeed, this month's campaign for the Assembly of Experts, a relatively obscure body of clerics, has been plagued by bouts of violence…
But all is not lost. After two decades of behind-the-scenes maneuvering among rival factions, the infighting has been brought out into the open…
U.S. Rights Group Backs Jailed Iran Cleric,
Reuters, October 27
DUBAI - A U.S. human rights group expressed support for a Shi'ite Moslem cleric jailed in Iran after he published articles supporting women's rights.
The New York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, in a statement received by Reuters on Tuesday, urged lawyers to write on behalf of Mohsen Saeidzadeh to Iranian head of judiciary Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi and Iran's envoy to the United Nations.
Iranian newspapers have carried reports on Saeidzadeh's arrest on unspecified charges.
Iran's Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry last month refused to allow the publication of Saeidzadeh's "Freedom of Women during the Time of Mohammad," charging that the book showed disrespect towards the prophet of Islam.
A U.N. report said last week "quantifiable progress" was not in sight in women's rights after the election of President Mohammad Khatami last year.