Ebadi rejects U.S. claim of Iran nuke plan
China Post of Taiwan
2004/1/18
Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi on Saturday ridiculed U.S. suggestions that her native Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb.
"Iran ... doesn't need a nuclear bomb. We have not made any nuclear bombs and we do not have that technology," she said. "If Americans are condemning us, don't forget that at one point they were saying the same things against Iraq.
"But did they find any weapons of mass destruction?" the Iranian human rights lawyer asked in an interview with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the World Social Forum in Bombay.
The United States has accused Tehran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons, but Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and geared only toward producing electricity.
Ebadi, who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, is among the most prominent speakers at the six-day forum, billed as the world's largest gathering of anti-globalization activists.
She said that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, it was "easier than in the past for people to be labeled terrorists."
"Unfortunately the misuse of the war on terrorism is increasing in the world," she said.
She also dismissed the view of a so-called clash of civilizations between the Christian West and the Muslim Middle East.
"This theory is just a justification for war. Since they started teaching this theory in U.S. universities, they started to justify war," Ebadi said, adding if any terrorists are "killing in the name of Islam, they are misusing Islam."
The 56-year-old activist, who was awarded the Nobel for her work on the rights of women and children, has been criticized at home by Muslim fundamentalists. She was given bodyguards in Iran after receiving death threats.
"Since 10 years, I have been threatened through letters and over the telephone in Iran. Fear is ... like hunger, you can't control it. I'm afraid, but I can handle this fear," she said.
Her Nobel Prize acceptance speech, at which she appeared without the traditional Muslim headscarf, was not televised in Iran.
Ebadi, the first woman judge in Iran, was forced to resign after the country's 1979 Islamic revolution, and now works at Teheran University.
She has been imprisoned several times, and has been involved in several controversial cases, including one related to fatal attacks on students at Tehran University in 1999.
Ebadi said Iranians believe there is a possibility of a U.S.-led war against them.
"Iranian people think about this possibility. But I am sure that the Iranian people in the case of a war from the U.S. will be united to stop an occupation of their country."
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Comment: I report, You decide. I also ask you to view the above poll done by an Iranian website.