What can Goli Ameri do?
New US human rights rep can raise awareness
against IRI's growing pressure on dissidents
March 16, 2005
iranian.com
I wrote a short
news piece about the appointment
of Goli Ameri to the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva
last
week. This piece, which was just a
short news blip, appeared on Iranian.com. I have since received several
e-mails with questions and opinions, including one from a dear member of Ameri's
family.
In order to be fair to Ameri and to address the
unnecessary doubt that this might have created I feel the need
to articulate a bit more. First
let me say that I am a part-time radio journalist, and I have been working
with a well respected radio station in Portland, OR. This puts a responsibility
on
my shoulders to scrutinize what I see and read and want to report, regardless
of who the subject is.
Ameri is now a public figure and as such subject
of scrutiny, if I don't ask questions someone else would. I also need
to confess that for the past 15 years I have been involved with advocacy on
human rights issues in Iran and for Iranians elsewhere, not just by personal
actions but also by participating in Amnesty International campaigns and by
being an active member of the late Iranian Human Rights Working Group (1994-2000).
My intention was not to downgrade this appointment. I am honored to see
a Ameri
be the US representative to UNCHR rather than a Shelly or Robert, even
if I did not know Ameri
personally. Further I should say that I have come
to know Ameri
for almost a decade and have been informed of her activities not very closely
but from a short distance since then. Obviously we have serious differences
of opinion, but we have agreed to differ.
What I wrote about her immigration to
the US (in the early 70s) and her travel back to Iran (in the late
90s) is
based on data available publicly on-line (i.e., "Wikipedia" and "Lifting
the Veilr"). I
agree with her son that she moved to US to go to school in 1973, and
was not just immigrated yet.
The point I was trying to make
was that contrary to what was claimed in Ameri's campaign, she did
not escape from persecution
and tyranny. She and many other Iranians including myself are self-exiled;
we have decided to stay here to enjoy the freedom and the opportunities
we could
not find back home.
She almost became a US Congresswoman and is a very
successful businesswoman and now a presidential appointee. These
are all good and honorable accomplishments, but her move is properly
described as immigration
to the land of opportunity. Maybe it was a campaign strategy to make the image more
catchy, but in my humble opinion the candidate did not need to capitalize
on something she was not (a refugee and escapee). The United States is
a land
of immigrants but not all have escaped a holocaust. We are all somehow
part of what was described by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) in the New
Colossus in
1883;
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she,
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddles masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore;
send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Now what does all this have
to do with the presidential appointment? I was trying to find the
motive behind the selection
of Ameri to this post.
I proposed two possibilities; was this action purely based
on her unconditional support of President Bush, sort of a pay back
to an ally, which happens all the
time with more than 2000 public seats that are appointed by the President
without other criteria whatsoever? Or was it the opportunity for political
pressure on
Iran because of what Ameri
has said during her campaign?
If neither
are the reason, she must have some credential to
be on a Human Rights Commission of that stature, does she not? I
honestly have no
information on her
involvement with human rights organizations. If there is such engagement
why did not show up on her resume during the campaign? Finally I
could speculate
that this appointment has something to do with her refugee status
and escape from prosecution and that is where the connection came
in.
Regardless of what motivated the President to appoint
Ameri to this position, now that she is there it is our duty
to congratulate
her and
wish her the best.
Meantime it is also our duty to remind her of the importance of the
seat
she occupies and the delicacy needed in maneuvering as an
Iranian-American with all the good intentions that I am sure she
has.
The ruling conservatives of the Islamic Republic
of Iran have maintained their intention of imbuing the political
climate of
the country
of all of their opponents.
They are carrying out their plan through exerting heavier pressure
on writers, journalists, human rights advocates, and any dissidents
in
general. The
situation is characterized by increased violation of human rights.
Repercussions of
their actions have also affected the lives of political prisoners,
their families,
as well as their lawyers.
Pressure on human rights' advocates has
increased in the past months. That has included even Shirin
Ebadi, despite
the fact that
she is a Nobel Peace laureate and watched by the world community.
Furthermore, the web bloggers and Internet service providers are
persistently being pressured
to quit their activities. The list of web sites being blocked by
the government from public access grows day by day. Assemblies
of university
students
and their associations have been obstructed and this tactic has
expanded to
labor organizations,
even those established under Islamic Workers Society agendas.
Oppressions
have led to the disintegration of the population and lost opportunities
for fluent dissemination of news, information
and cultural
exchanges. The
public has been kept in the dark with respect to the Islamic Republic's
destructive and detrimental foreign policies. Under these circumstances,
insomuch as international
affairs are concerned, the country's national interests are prone
to be compromised. Meanwhile in the international eyes, as expected,
human rights issues
in Iran have been overshadowed by Iran's crisis related to nuclear
activities.
We should raise awareness against this
trend. To confront the situation, collaborative
efforts
at the national
and international
levels are required. Until the intellectual community inside the
country is mobilized and the world is informed about these facts,
the crisis
will not
subside. We
ought to convince the international community and foreign governments
that promoting democracy in Iran is the best way to ensure that
Iran will
comply with universal
nuclear guidelines and will not be a threat to the world security
in any way.
 It
is now three years that the Commission on Human Rights has refused
to adopt a resolution condemning Islamic Republic's violations
of human rights, mainly
because some member states had fear that adopting a resolution
would jeopardize nuclear negotiations with their Iranian
counterpart. The direct result of such
negligence is that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has
not appointed a Special Rapporteur for Iran who could be able to
directly
monitor
the situation inside the
country.
Responding to a call by three children of three dissidents,
two of whom were murdered by intelligence agents (Mokhtari and
Pouyandeh),
and one
who is a
defense lawyer for victims of these chain murders and is kept
in prison even after serving
his sentence (Zarafshan), scores of Iranians in Europe gathered
in front of the UN in Geneva. They, along with human rights activists
around
the world,
demanded
continuous inspection of the situation in Iran by the UN Commission
on Human Rights and asked for appointment of a Special Rapporteur
for
Iran.
It is a fact that US representatives are at the Commission
to defend their own
government's human rights record, which in the case of the Bush
administration is not very shiny to begin with. One only needs
to look at the reasons
why the US
was voted out of the Commission four years ago; hostile US reaction
to former high commissioner Marry Robinson's criticism of American
human
rights abuses in
Afghanistan and Guantanamo, and the U.S. votes on human-rights
standards, including the opposition to a treaty to abolish landmines,
to the
International Criminal
Court, to making AIDS drugs available to everyone, and execution
of juveniles (before it was banned by the US Supreme Court last
week).
 Nevertheless in addition to her duty as a US representative,
I trust that Ameri can play a crucial role in supporting
a human
rights
agenda
for Iran that
is purely based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights not political
motivations, or anything set forth by Neo-cons. And I certainly
wish
Goli would
do just that. About
Goudarz Eghtedari is an engineer by profession, a journalist,
peace and
Human Rights activist who lives in Portland, Oregon >>> See VoicesOfTheMiddleEast.com
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