An Open Letter to the organizers of the Iran Freedom Concert

*After much thought, I have realized that my stand on this concert was expressed in such a way to somewhat obscure my committment to human rights. So as of 3/17/06, I have edited and reposted the letter.

Dear Organizers of the
Iran Freedom concert,

Based on the information provided in your website, I am writing to make you aware of two things: 1) Your website is riddled factual errors about the types of human rights abuses in Iran and, 2) What an unsustainable claim you make to "not take a stance on policy issues like foreign intervention."

Firstly, you have grossly misrepresented the civil rights abuses that do take place in Iran. A couple quick corrections off the top of my head: there are many Kurdish books in Iran. There are also Kurdish government officials; one of the most high-ranking was former government speaker Abdollah Ramazanzadeh. People are not executed for their religion in the sense of being rounded up and shot. But, Bahais are considered legally as apostates and face discrimination, arbitrary seizure, and at worst, the death penalty for publicly practicing their religion. But their case is different from other minorities and if you conflate all of them, then you are glossing over the precarious nature of their position in Iran. Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians have official representation in parliament and are free to practice their religion, but not to proselytize (of course many do this anyway, Christianity is the fastest growing religion in Iran). Christian Bibles are available for sale at many bookstores, with official approval. Your section on discrimination against homosexuals is also highly misleading. Homosexuals are in considerable danger in Iran, but the photograph that you have posted is of two young men who were hanged in Mashhad on charges of homosexual rape of a minor. The punitive laws for co-ed partying and for adultery apply to both sexes, not just to women. I also find the way in which you bring attention to the Iranian legal system to be more about how barbaric you consider the Iranian government, not any sort of principled stance. You repeatedly emphasize that executions are hanging in public. Is it more humane to execute people via poisonous injections in private, as takes place in the United States? More in keeping with human rights would be a universal repudiation of the death penalty where ever it may be legally sanctioned.

The discrimination and repression in Iran are highly deplorable, but I wonder, does the Christian Fellowship and the Harvard Republicans support full anti-discrimination of homosexuals in this country? Also, isn’t a successful strategy of protest against repression one that assesses the situation accurately and pursues a course most likely to have a constructive effect? I think this takes into account the various destructive ways over the last 150 years for which better minority rights have been pursued. These include those who have allowed themselves to be appropriated by their imperialist governments whose policies have sought to use minority rights as a leverage point to politically and economically exploit the country. This actually has resulted in more danger for minorities, marking them, however unfairly, as foreign and as imperial agents. In this sense, your condemnation of US violence against Iran is imperative.

Secondly, can you please explain to me how you think that a concert that "raises awareness of the Iranian government's human rights abuses and expresses solidarity with Iranian students seeking to end these violations" does not take a stand on the possible U.S. economic sanctions, U.S. supported Israeli attacks, or a direct U.S. military attack? It seems to me that such a position is unsustainable because you are raising the awareness in the US, at a time when the government is trying to convince the public that Iran must be denied rights to nuclear technology (contra to its legal rights in the same treaty by which the US is also legally bound). The US case for attacking Iran hinges on creating a consensus on evil intent on the part of the Iranian government. This is imperative because the US has no legal case and no proof of Iranian intent to build nuclear weapons, and, it was shown to have misrepresented unconfirmed (at best) intelligence on Iraq's intent and weapons capability. Thus, the US government needs to build consensus among the public of general evil intent that will serve to discredit explicit Iran denials of going beyond legal nuclear energy technology and deny Iran its legal treaty rights to that technology.

By no stretch of the imagination am I a fan of the current regime, however, I also think that the situation needs to be approached through constructive means, not through (inadvertent or not) support of the US military bludgeon. This is where your event comes in. Even if you do not make an intentionally explicit claim to weigh in on foreign policy, your organization's event, because of the inescapable fact that it takes place here and now in the US, becomes part of the US government's case for sanctioned violence on Iran. You don't need to make an explicit claim. The event itself, assigned meaning by its context, is itself an explicit endorsement of war on Iran. UNLESS, you condemn the use of violence and endorse the utter exhaustion of all peaceful means of negotiation. This is a principle enshrined in the UN Charter for the very good reason that it is an integral principle of the Just War doctrine from which the Charter is derived.

I urge you to ask yourself, why Iran, why now? Why not Zimbabwe? Why not Egypt? You want a repressive government? Why not Myanmar?

I have two questions: 1) Where does your organization receive its funding? Is any of it, directly or indirectly, from the US government, more specifically, the 75 million recently earmarked by Congress to support "democracy" in Iran? 2) Do you have any actual contact with the student groups in Iran? Which ones? Where do they stand on US military attacks on Iran? And if not, why do you think you know their aims and can speak for them? Have you given a voice or any consideration to the student groups or bloggers that vehemently reject any and all US based activism on the ground that it a) can be appropriated by a jingoistic US government delivering “democracy” from the barrel of hundreds of thousands of guns and bombs that has proven quite bleak in Afghanistan and Iraq; and b) that because of the overwhelming likelihood of that appropriation, such activism will be read as collusion with an imperialist power with a strong and proven will to destruction, domination and exploitation.

Finally, I ask you, what happens to the principles of democracy and a free society when they are implemented through means which undermine their legitimacy? Do you end up with something that isn’t democracy at all?

I eagerly await your response to my questions and comments. If you choose to completely ignore me, I will have to conclude that I am correct in thinking that your claim to non-partisan neutrality on policy issues is fallacious. Furthermore, I will be convinced that you know what you are doing and thus you activities are dishonest and insidious to boot. I intend to make our dialogue public in the blogsphere, a public that crisscrosses activist, diasporic, and academic networks across world regions.

Best,

Mana Kia

Here is the response I received:

Dear Mana,

I wanted to thank you again for your email. We have been getting a
range of feedback, so we decided to put together an FAQ to address such
questions.

Please check it out here.

We are sorry to hear that you disagree with our event, but we respect
your right to do so. Thanks for your interest in promoting dialogue
about these issues.

Best,

Nick

In response I wrote back:

Dear Organizers,

This page provides some answers, but ultimately fails to answer the most pressing questions I present in my letter. Not taking a stand on intervention while condemning (a creative version) of human rights abuses in Iran, is allowing the wider official drum beating for war to incorporate you into their stand. Were you perhaps too young to remember what happened in 2002 in the lead up to the war in Iraq? Because it is eerily reminiscent.

Also, some of the spurious information I have pointed out about human rights abuses, you have left on your website. For instance, getting busted at a co-ed party with booze is not a form of gender discrimination. I am well aware of abuses against minorities, and yet, as an Iranian woman from a minority family, who likes to party (since you've included that in some assumptions about student group priorities) I don't feel like you are showing solidarity toward my counterparts in Iran. I feel like you are being hugely irresponsible politically in ignoring the context in which you are organizing such an event.

Here is the link to a translation of a student group leader and his response to US based human rights activism in Iran. I hope you will read it and reflect on what you are doing and who exactly it will ultimately serve.

Best,

Mana Kia

The text below is my quick translation of a piece by Saeed Ebrahim Habibi, a member of the same student organization through which Afshari once carried out his political activities. The post is a reflection on and objection to the speech of Afshari and Atri to the U.S. Congress.

The translation consists of all of the links of the original post, along with the photos that were included therein. Please be warned that the pictures are very graphic.

In peace,
Niki Akhavan


The Ends Do Not Justify the Means
There are certain fragments from history, which though they may have depths that are yet to be discovered, are nonetheless instructive. The relationship between Iran and the U.S. constitutes one such fragment. I do not intend to be longwinded because I think the issue is so clear that it does not need much elaboration. In brief, the subject at hand concerns the trip of two hardworking friends to D.C. where they asked Republican (!) and Democratic (!) senators for their help with Human Rights issues in Iran. We can defer for now the discussion of the tragic Human Rights situation in Iran, since we all know it very well and we all suffer from it. However, what I am moved to write about now is motivated by a serious objection to two aspects of the form and content of these speeches.

First, this conference began with the speech of Senator Rick Santorum, the leader (sic) of the Republican party. He is behind the “Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2005” which offers a referendum as a solution to Iran’s problems and which allocates 10 million dollars towards this and related activities. The presence of two of the architects of the referendum plan alongside this person, especially in the U.S. congress, is to me not only unjustifiable but also taints them. Besides, the two gentlemen introduced themselves as leaders and representatives of the student movement, and this is an obvious error since they neither consulted any relevant groups in this regard nor do they in any case hold such a rank among them. And if they went simply as two activists who represent a social movement, then they have made an even bigger error because then their presence in the Congress can only be interpreted as an appeal to and dependence upon a foreign power. While it is evident that internal changes impact external ones, but in order to have influence on what happens outside one must either have power or be rooted in a social movement. It would have been useful if the two gentlemen told us in all honesty about their motivations.

Secondly, if we assume that this was an opportunity to ask the Republicans for help in protecting Human Rights, it must first be proven that the U.S. in general pursues the adherence to Human Rights—which I do not think it does—or at least one should point to their previous violations of Human Rights so that we can somewhat (and only somewhat!) decrease the chances that they would recur.

I wont for now get into a discussion of exploitation and imperialism, but I will say this much: for capitalists human rights comes down to protection of their capital and nothing else.

Sometimes images can have a deeper and more penetrating impact than words. I believe that U.S. intervention in international affairs has been accompanied with much bitterness. I doubt that history will ever forget the fact that the U.S. has been the only nation to use the nuclear bomb.




Democracy was the excuse behind the Vietnam war as well. Four million people paid with their lives for the U.S pursuit of democracy.






Mr. Afshari and Mr. Atri, it would have been good if you had said something about Iraq as well. Merely stating your opposition to a military invasion is not enough. Being silent about Iraq or asking for help from the enemy can bear no justification. Children are sacrificed in the pursuit of this type of democracy.





On the anniversary of Mossadeq, it is very bitter to thank “all those who have given us the opportunity to speech to Congress and its respected members”. What would have been the harm in making but the slightest reference to the Coup d’etat of 1953? What about the coup d’etat of 9/11 against the people of Chile? And is human rights anything but the rights of those people who gathered around Mossadeq and the Allende?




Those who know and those who do not know me will know that my condemnations of U.S. international policy is in no way sanctions more than 25 years of human rights violations in Iran. Nor does it dismiss Ali’s [Afshari] hard work in Iran and the heavy price he paid in prison. My worry is only about the future that may come about if indecent means are justified in pursuit of our goals.