By Owen Rathbone on 06/27/03
American Daily, Ohio
Iran is back in the spotlight again following a recent series of student revolts and mass gatherings calling for greater freedoms and an end to Muslim clerics’ twenty-four year stranglehold on the Iranian people. According to observers and participants, the demonstrations and displays of defiance are the most intense in five years of sporadic protests.
Whereas earlier protests were mainly against the mullahs (the Iranian word for clerics), today “moderate” President Mohammad Khatami is also being denounced for failing to implement meaningful reforms. Although many Western leaders and commentators still pin their hopes on Khatami and the possibility of reform from within, most Iranians have accepted that true change is impossible without a radical transformation of the entire political system.
The desire for democracy is not restricted to students or fringe elements in Iranian society. Disenchanted people from all backgrounds and regions have taken to the streets over the past two weeks to demand an end to the Islamic Republic and the establishment of a secular government based on democratic principles. A Christian Science Monitor poll reveals that "90 percent of Iranians want change" and "70 percent want dramatic change."
Liberal pundits would have us believe that the increased displays of public defiance against the Iranian clerics and government are U.S.-orchestrated and part of a wider plot to destabilize Iran and increase American influence in the region. Such characterizations not only parrot the mullah’s party line, but also do a great disservice to the Iranian people, who must endure great hardships on a daily basis.
In the late 1970s, Iran’s per capita income stood roughly equivalent to Spain’s, but since the time of the Islamic Revolution the country has experienced steady economic decline. Inflation sits at 20 percent, while unemployment has soared to 30 percent. Although Iran is rich with petroleum and natural gas, nearly 60 per cent of the population lives under the poverty line.
Far more disturbing than the dismal economic conditions in Iran is the political repression of the Iranian people. Up to 700,000 Iranians are imprisoned in secret jails, claim dissidents. Floggings, torture, mutilations, public hangings and executions are just a few of the means the conservative mullahs use to terrorize the populace.
In the past several weeks, pro-mullah vigilante paramilitary forces, many of them foreign thugs recruited from Afghanistan and other terrorist hotbeds, have scoured the country intimidating pro-democracy activists. Wielding chains, clubs, knives and guns, the vigilantes have attacked and threatened demonstrators in a brutal bid to quell dissent. According to human rights organizations, the vigilantes have even resorted to driving motorcycles into crowds to break up demonstrations and injure protesters.
In such a repressive political climate, freedom of the press is non-existent. Nearly 100 pro-reform journals and newspapers have been shut down since 1997, leaving the Internet and foreign radio and television broadcasts as the only means to spread democratic ideals. To the chagrin of the mullah authorities, hundreds of tech-savvy Iranians have become expert Internet “bloggers,” skilled at providing up-to-the-minute commentary on local developments and disseminating information from outside news sources.
U.S.-based Iranian satellite TV shows have also become a favorite of viewers ranging from students to housewives.
As Iranians clamor for freedom it is worth noting the outside world’s reactions.
The U.S. government, steadfast in its principles, has expressed strong support for the demonstrators. President George W. Bush recently went on record saying that he viewed Iranians’ protests as “the beginning of people expressing themselves toward a free Iran.” U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice echoed the President’s sentiments in a June 20 Fox News interview, stating how important it is to recognize the “rightness” of the peoples’ cause and to “let them know that there are those in the international community who care.”
In contrast to the U.S.’s highly principled response, the United Nations (UN) has been noticeably reticent. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who should be expected to side with the Iranian people, has kept tight-lipped over the pro-democracy demonstrations. Rather than expressing any overt support for greater freedoms and improved human rights in Iran, Annan has only managed to say that "Any change in regime is a matter which only the Iranian people can decide," indirectly chiding the U.S. for rallying behind pro-democratic forces.
For good reason, Iranian political activists have lost complete faith in the UN. For more than two decades, Iranian civic groups have made repeated appeals to the UN’s Human Rights Commission only to be rebuffed. In fact, to the great anger of the Iranian pro-democracy movement, Kofi Annan has actually praised President Khatami’s “accomplishments” and the “freedoms” he has bestowed upon the Iranian population.
The flourishing democratic nations of Western Europe have similarly displayed a marked indifference to Iranians’ pleas for democracy. While the U.S. maintains a near total ban on trade with Iran, the European Union (EU) profits handsomely from being Iran’s largest trading partner, which means that European support for true reform has been tepid at best.
The EU, through representatives such as External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patton, maintains that engagement with Khatami’s “moderate” government is the most effective means to induce positive changes in Iran. However, seeing that it is business as usual with Europe, the mullahs have unsurprisingly been reluctant to alter their oppressive ways. The bloody clampdowns on dissidents over the past two weeks only confirm that conservative hardliners have no intention of acquiescing to the public’s demands for greater freedoms and reveal the EU position as a complete sham.
Russia is another interesting case. Eager to earn cash and curtail American power, the former communist nation has been working closely with Tehran to construct a nuclear plant in Bushehr. As Moscow stands to net some $1 billion dollars from the deal, it has remained aloof and refrained from commenting on Iranian politics. That Iran is using Russian experts and technology to establish a clandestine nuclear weapons program seems to be of little concern to Russia. For Putin and other Russian leaders, profits take precedence over justice and regional stability in the Middle East.
It is indeed a topsy-turvy world we live in. European leaders and UN representatives were quick to vilify the U.S. government for overthrowing Saddam Hussein, one of the greatest human rights violators of modern times. These same objectors to U.S. “aggression” in Iraq are now turning a blind eye to the Iranian people. As European and other supporters of the status quo donned a false cloak of anti-war “morality” to further their economic or political gain in Iraq, so do they profit from the misery of the Iranian people by supporting “engagement” and “dialogue” with the mullah theocracy in Iran.
Ironically, the country Ayatollah Khomeini once called “The Great Satan” is now seen as a beacon of hope by millions of Iranians. In view of Iranians’ experiences with Europe and the UN, the United States is esteemed nationwide for its firm commitment to democratic ideals and reluctance to trade with a repressive regime. Formerly denounced for being evil, America is heralded as the only world power that supports the change Iranians desire.
Now that the Iranian people have taken their lives into their own hands and are striving to throw off the yoke of their Islamo-fascist oppressors, they deserve the free world’s support. America, at least, has stood behind the Iranian people. It is high time other privileged nations and the UN did the same.
Owen Rathbone is a political commentator based in Seoul, South Korea. He can be contacted at: owenrathbone@yahoo.com.
Displaced Iranians speak out against tyranny in Tehran
JACQUI GODDARD
Alireza Morovati has just one request of those who take part in his radio station's phone-ins: say what you like about Iran's mullahs on air, but keep it clean.
Free speech is a privilege to which listeners in Iran are unaccustomed, so KRSI's switchboard lights up daily as they take the opportunity to air social or political grievances, discuss ideas and share philosophies. At its studios in Beverly Hills, California, KRSI - or Voice of Iran - beams its signal into the Islamic Republic without fear of censorship or persecution, providing an unfettered forum for news, music and discussion.
"People are not afraid to say what they think," says Mr Morovati, the station's chief executive, who fled Iran in 1979 following the fall of the shah. "They talk about the demonstrations in Tehran, they say they want to get rid of the mullahs, they talk about how desperate they are because the economy in Iran is so bad."
KRSI is one of about 10 radio and television stations set up by Iranian exiles in America. They cater not only to the global Persian diaspora - there are more than a million Iranians in America alone - but also to their homeland, much to the irritation of Iran's religious leaders, who attempt to jam their signals. KRSI broadcasts by satellite, on shortwave and over the internet, also packing its website with Western news agency reports of events both inside and outside Iran. There are also photographs of state executions and video footage of brutal prisoner interrogations - a reminder, if it were needed, of what can happen to those who fall foul of the fundamentalist regime.
With their combined diet of pop music, news of the free world, political punditry, modern literature, 21st-century youth culture and even on-air English lessons, the overall result of these stations is that millions of Iranians can now savour the taste of democracy from afar, even if they can't live it first-hand. Some see the exile-run media as a tool for social empowerment, particularly for students who have in recent days led demonstrations against the hardline Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader.
"People call in from Iran and speak openly in favour of democracy and democratic values; they say their non-elected supreme leader should be ousted," says Fereydoun Hoveyda, the late shah's last ambassador to the United Nations and now a senior fellow and executive member of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, an independent think-tank in Washington. "In previous years they would be wary of saying such things, but not now. People have had it with these mullahs."
There have been complaints among some exiles that the programming is run by and directed at followers of the late shah, who advocate a return to the extravagant glory days of a monarchist regime.
The head of National Iranian Television - a pro-American satellite station based in west Hollywood - is former rock star Zia Atabay, 61, a member of the shah's one-time social elite. Known in his heyday as the "Tom Jones of Iran", he was chased from Iran after the 1979 Islamic revolution, in which the shah was deposed in favour of fundamentalist rule. Three years ago, he launched NITV.
His aim was to make money by providing entertainment such as films and cookery programmes to a domestic Iranian-American audience. But the plan changed one night when a technician at the satellite up-link in Miami flicked the wrong switch. Suddenly, NITV in California started getting calls from viewers in the Iranian capital.
"Everybody in the studio, all of us were crying," Mr Atabay recalls in a documentary for CBS. "After 20 years, we feel we are back at home. They kicked us out, they took our passports, but we came back."
Despite it being illegal to own a satellite dish in Iran, demand for them grew as word of NITV spread. Tales abounded of Iranians selling their carpets and even their kidneys to afford one. But the cost of upgrading NITV to operate a jam-resistant signal is crippling and the station risks going under. Like other US stations run by exiles, it relies on advertising revenue, donations, sponsorship, subscriptions and even charity "telethons".
Ambassador Hoveyda believes that, far from expounding a return to the past, the broadcasters have helped foster consensus among exiles about Iran's future. "They have established dialogue between exiled Iranians inside and outside the United States who are now, after 25 years, convinced that the best thing for the future of Iran is a democratically elected government," he says.