Couple fought valiantly for human rights
By Martin Regg Cohn
Toronto Star
Middle East Bureau
November 27, 1998
A month ago, they were serving us tea and biscuits on fine china, attentive
hosts even as they voiced outrage over Iran's human rights abuses.
Yesterday, dissident Dariush Forouhar and his wife Parvaneh were buried
in the cold soil of Iran, victims of a ghoulish double assassination that
has shaken the Islamic Republic.
After his killer thrust a knife through Forouhar's heart last Sunday,
police found his body slumped behind the desk in his study. He was murdered
across the foyer from the high-ceilinged Tehran salon where he played host
to us.
The couple paid the ultimate price for speaking out Forouhar's 58-year-old
wife, who devoted her life to their struggle, met the same fate in another
corner of their home.
I still remember her gentle laughter on the steps that night, as my
wife Karen awkwardly adjusted the hijab headscarf that women must wear
in Islamic Iran. An avowed secularist, Parvaneh said she hated religious
coercion.
She with her radiant beauty and earnest ideals, he with his handlebar
moustache and dignified tone; they were among Iran's most enduring dissidents.
They smiled and joked as they walked us down the stairs of their Tehran
home later that night, momentarily forgetting their deadly serious struggle.
Long after most others had given up on Iran, they stood their ground.
They went to their graves yesterday, mourned by 7,000 friends and supporters,
some chanting defiantly ``death to tyranny'' and ``freedom of thought forever.''
We had only one encounter with these Persian patriots, but Forouhar's
words stayed with me. The 70-year-old said what few other Iranians were
prepared to say on the record: Mohammad Khatami's government was out-muscled
by the rival power centres in Iran, where clerics jealously guard their
turf.
In retrospect, his analysis seems eerily prescient. ``I am not one of
those pseudo-intellectuals who think Khatami will foster a better political
atmosphere, an independent judiciary, and increased political freedom,''
he said.
In fact, Khatami won power last year by promising to restore the rule
of law and respect for the constitution.
But Forouhar argued that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini,
had manipulated the Khatami phenomenon to pacify the Iranians.
He had first-hand experience in clerical tactics. After being jailed
for years under the regime of the late Shah of Iran, he served briefly
as labour minister in the first cabinet after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
As the clerics consolidated their grip on power, they pushed him to
the sidelines, where he fought for human rights on behalf of his Iran Nation
Party. For nearly two decades, he toiled largely in obscurity.
Every time I visit Iran, I marvel at the dedication and resilience of
people like Forouhar, and at the country's unique combination of spirituality
and cruelty, hospitality and inhumanity.
Every time I leave, I see the price dissidents pay for having the courage
to speak out. A year ago I interviewed another opposition politician
in Iran, Freedom Party leader Ibrahim Yazdi. Like Forouhar, he served briefly
in the post-revolutionary cabinet, fell out of favour, and now finds his
movement outside the law.
Like Forouhar, his words were prophetic.
``Khatami won only an election, but he doesn't have the proper means
to pursue what he has promised the people,'' Yazdi said. ``A rebirth is
taking place, and I'm afraid it will not be without pain and agony.''
Only days after I saw him, prosecutors from the revolutionary courts
interrogated Yazdi then threw him in prison, charged with ``desecrating
religious sanctities.''
Such is the unpredictable rule of revolutionary law in Iran today.
Forouhar braced for worst, dared to hope for something better This week,
Khatami and other high officials quickly condemned the latest killings,
but their words ring hollow.
The government tolerated, but never legalized, Forouhar's political
movement, putting it at risk of retaliation.
``Words alone cannot allay the growing concerns that those who speak
out will either be intimidated, beaten, or killed,'' the New York-based
group Human Rights Watch said this week.
In recent months, Iran has tried hard to reform its international image.
The government publicly distanced itself from the fatwa (religious ruling)
condemning British writer Salman Rushdie to death for insulting Islam with
his book, The Satanic Verses.
But that symbolic gesture only enraged Islamic fundamentalists, who
reacted by raising the bounty on Rushdie's life. In the wake of this week's
events, it is hard to imagine Rushdie letting his guard down.
Forouhar always braced for the worst, but he dared to hope for something
better. When he spoke to the foreign media, he insisted on the best translators,
counting on them to convey his words to the outside world.
He wanted people abroad to know about his work documenting violations
of human rights inside Iran's borders. For that reason, he would have
wanted the world to know about his death - if only to inspire his fellow
Iranians to continue his struggle for democracy.
