The founders of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC)
made a fundamental mistake when they established an organization to lobby for
the Islamic Regime of Iran (IRI). In order to be able to promote a friendship
with a terrorist regime, NIAC had not only to be silent about the human rights
violations in Iran
but to undermine its validity. When questioned on the human rights issue, NIAC
has always placed the blame on U.S.
pressure and has lectured that recognition of the IRI would improve the human
rights issue in Iran.
Due to this strategy, they have never condemned the human rights violations in Iran. Currently,
not a single trace of the term “human rights” can be detected in their goals
and mandates.
This calculated ignorance, and the statement made recently by
NIAC’s president, Trita Parsi, played a major role in unveiling the true face
of this organization. When NIAC went out of its way and tried to influence
organizations like Amnesty International (AI), their liability regarding the absence
of concern for human rights violation in Iran and lack of any condemnation of
the IRI for its daily abuses became the focal point of human rights groups in
general and the Mission for Establishment of Human Rights in Iran (MEHR) in
particular.
MEHR challenged the AI as to how and why they promote an
organization that has nothing to do with the human rights issue in Iran. When questioned
in a meeting held in the Congress (01/18/08) as to why NIAC does not take any
meaningful position against human rights violations by Iran, Mr. Trita
Parsi’s reply was: “NIAC is not a human rights organization. We do not have expertise in that area.” After
MEHR’s single announcement of Parsi’s quotation and AI’s event, several hundred
Iranians supported MEHR’s petition in objection to AI for promoting NIAC.
NIAC – an organization that announces its major goal as
stated on its website: “Promoting Iranian American Participation in American
Civic Life” – has focused most of its effort on re-establishing normal
relations with the religious dictatorship in Iran. In doing so, NIAC has tried
hard to discredit all opposition to the Islamic Regime of Iran, disregarding
thousands of human rights activists who fight against the IRI for a secular
democracy and have paid dearly for it.
The discredited NIAC has attempted a comeback by trying to
correct its strategy, in words but not in deed. In a recent
article posted on an Iranian site, Trita Parsi begins with the usual
allegation that due to “The Bush administration's Iran Democracy Fund…Iranian
authorities have clamped down on Iran's civil society with thousands
of arrests.”
Parsi further speaks for “human rights defenders” in Iran by stating
that:
“Human rights workers argue that the "regime change
slush fund" has facilitated the Ahmadinejad government's latest wave of
abuses… While they recognize that the absence of diplomacy between Washington and Tehran -
and the ensuing tensions - enable the Iranian government to intensify
human-rights abuses, activists also fear that U.S.-Iran talks might result in a
relationship that mirrors America's
relationship with Saudi Arabia,
Egypt or Iran under the
shah. That is, one in which geopolitical objectives trump concerns about human
rights and democracy.”
As Parsi continues:
“There is a solution to this dilemma…Washington must restore
its own standing on human rights, and put the deteriorating human rights
situation in Iran on the table in its discussions with Tehran. A foreign policy
contingent on human rights will create a balance between America's relationship with the people of Iran and its relationship with Iran's unpopular government.”
He then concludes, stating that “the next president of the United States must recognize the necessity of
reducing tensions with Tehran
through diplomacy.”
If this statement was in fact a genuine alteration of NIAC’s
policy, nothing would have been more satisfying than to witness the evaporation
of one of the main pillars of support for the Islamic Regime. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Being
exposed and on the run, NIAC has discovered that to remain an active promoter
of IRI, a little lip service to human rights doesn’t hurt. After all, there is
a Persian proverb to this effect that: “Human Rights is a chicken served in
both funeral and wedding.” Khomeini, the founder of the system of terror in Iran, hardly missed the reference to human
rights in Iran
in numerous speeches made before the Islamic Revolution.
NIAC’s new position is not genuine and remains nothing more
than an empty gesture made for the sake of “record.” It is not a coincidence
that this article has only been published in an online Iranian site (IPS)
and was never posted on NIAC’s website.
Human rights violations in Iran are not an arbitrary action of
this or that faction or something practiced by hardliners. It is the law of the
land. Article 4 of IRI’s constitution makes every single article contingent
upon observation of the Islamic laws:
“All civil, penal financial, economic, administrative,
cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on
Islamic criteria. This principle applies absolutely and generally to all
articles of the Constitution as well as to all other laws and regulations, and
the fuqaha' of the Guardian Council are judges in this matter.”
In sharia’s law that is amended to the constitution,
torture, stoning, and body mutilation are considered lawful acts of correcting
the sinners. There is no reform possible in this system. You touch it and it
collapses. That was why during the presidency of Khatami, NIAC’s darling, and during
the era of “reforms,” the number of individuals being stoned was at its
highest. Neither he nor any other so called reformer dared to condemn this
ultimate form of an inhumane act.
Mr. Parsi is well aware of these facts, which explains why his
reference to human rights is a deceitful act aimed to further cover up his true
intentions. His goal is to put human rights on a table to make the digestion of
a terrorizing system possible. MEHR has been advocating for inclusion of the
human rights observation as a precondition for any negotiation with the Islamic
Regime. This precondition is not warranted by lecturing the notorious regime or
by issuing statements and reports on human rights violations. These gestures
have been made by the U.S and Europeans repeatedly in so many years. Each year,
State Department and EU States as well as all human rights organizations and UN
publish reports in condemnation of the Iran for human rights violations. Yet,
at the very same time, lucrative deals have been made with the very same regime
with no conditions whatsoever.
If one truly cares for human rights, it would be made a
precondition for any negotiation, and the release of all political prisoners
would be a first step. Mr. Parsi cannot afford taking such a position because
he knows that the IRI would never accept these conditions and friendly
relations with the Mullahs would become history. For him, human rights are only
good as a decoration of negotiations that would compromise and betray the
Iranian struggle for a secular democracy.