Iranian Nobel laureate urges focus on rights
By
Harvey Morris in New York
The United Nations should focus on pressing the Tehran regime to restore democracy and human rights rather than imposing economic sanctions on Iran for its nuclear programme, says Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian opposition activist.
“A military attack or economic sanctions would be to the detriment of the people of Iran,” she said, adding that the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad had ways to circumvent further economic measures and their unintended impact might be to rally people behind the regime.
She called, however, for action against western companies that she said were supporting actively the censorship and repression of the opposition movement.
The UN Security Council should focus not only on the nuclear programme “but also put human rights and democracy on your agenda. Non-democratic countries can be as dangerous to world peace as an atomic bomb.”
Ms Ebadi’s comments came as the US and other western governments struggled to secure consensus on a fourth round of sanctions at the UN in the face of Chinese insistence that diplomacy be given more time.
The US has circulated proposals on tougher restrictions on relations with Iran but has yet to present a draft resolution, and a vote at the council could be months away.
Before that, the US Congress might adopt its own sanctions package, banning US contracts with foreign companies that do business with Iran, which diplomats concede could complicate efforts to secure consensus at the UN.
Brazil and Turkey, temporary members of the 15-member council, are opposed to a new round of sanctions. A resolution that failed to win a near majority would undermine the western case that Iran was facing a united international front.
From the western perspective, the worst outcome would be a weak package of measures that failed to win near unanimity.
Ms Ebadi, who has been travelling abroad since leaving Iran for a conference on the eve of last year’s presidential election, said western states should put as much effort towards restricting companies that help the regime repress the opposition as they do into tracking down banks doing business with Iran.
Tehran should be obliged to abide by international obligations to protect human rights as well as by its nuclear commitments, said Ms Ebadi. “Assuming Iran agrees on the nuclear programme, will the west worry about what happens to the people of Iran?” she asked.
The human rights lawyer, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, named Nokia-Siemens and France’s Eutelsat as among a number of companies she said were helping the regime. A Nokia-Siemens spokeswoman was quoted last week as denying opposition claims that telecoms technology it supplied to Iran could be used to monitor internet traffic.
Ms Ebadi said Eutelsat was continuing to supply satellite communications to Iranian government broadcasters while cutting services to western organisations broadcasting into Iran, including the BBC, that were being jammed by the Iranian authorities.
As the US Senate and House of Representatives prepared to discuss combining their own legislation on Iran sanctions, the US Government Accountability Office last week criticised flaws in US statistics that are intended to keep track of trade with Iran.
It noted inadequacies in the Treasury’s filings and said: “Treasury’s information systems weaken the ability of the government to assess compliance with Iran sanctions.”