Ebadi, who is in Oslo as the guest of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, continues: -The so-called Green Movement is no longer an urban phenomenon. You find it all across the country, in rural and urban areas alike. Unlike political parties, where decisions are taken by the leadership, and implemented top-down, the Green Movement works like a national network, with bottom-up decision-making processes and horizontal communication lines. The movement is a reflection of the will of the people, and its relative lack of a clearly defined, individual and mandated leadership is one of the movement’s strengths. If some of its best known spokespersons are arrested, the Green Movement will not collapse. It will move on.
Ebadi, left, with President of the Oslo Center, former Prime Minister Kjell-Magne Bondevik, looks back on the elections last year as the breakthrough of what can now be seen as a turning point. –Weeks in advance, the government had warned that it would not take kindly to any kinds of demonstrations by the Green Movement. Even so, people took to the streets spontaneously, and many even daring to wear green. The response was harsh. People were beaten with batons and dispersed with tear gas. And in addition to counting anyone not wearing green as a supporter of the regime, the government brought in busloads of loyalists from the provinces to the capital, to dilute the impression of a massive protest that the large numbers of Green Movement supporters otherwise would have given.
Since the elections, there were protests during the Ashura, the holiest day of the Shias, which last year was observed late December. On this occasion, the government dubbed the Green Movement ’enemies of God’. Then again, on the 31st anniversary of the revolution, there were more demonstrations, but with a lesser turnout on both sides this time. While some were probably scared by what had happened on the two previous occasions, others were on leave, as the anniversary fell on a long weekend, with the coincidence of two religious Holidays.
In the build-up to the anniversary, the government had ordered the arrest of several opposition leaders. This obviously discouraged a lot of people from taking to the streets yet again. –Over the last six months, thousands of oppositionals have been arrested, continues Ebadi. -Many have been tortured, and the number of executions is on the rise. Numerous newspapers have been shut down. Iran now has the highest number of arrested journalists in the world. In a recent letter to Nava Pillay, left, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ebadi states that there are currently 63 reporters and photojournalists in the country’s prisons. The organisations Reporters Without Borders gives the same figure.
In addition come all the students, academics and other public figures who have raised there voices against the regime. During the protests at the University of Tehran, where the authorities killed five and beat up and arrested many, many more, the students themselves became the journalists. They shot vodeo footage of what happened, and placed it on YouTube. It is there for the world to see. And of those arrested, many were tortured to death. It is also known that female detainees were raped.
-Among these are also a large number of women. Although there are more women than men with higher education in Iran now, the country remains remarkably backward when it comes to balancing the rights of women and men. Women are grossly underrepresented in politics and high administrative positions, and nothing is done to amend this. On the contrary, the authorities consider the demand for equal rights an act of blasphemy and a conspiration to overthrow the Islamic Republic. Criminal proceedings have been brought against more than a hundred women on these charges. Bigamy is still legal, compensation fees for similar crimes and in comparable situations are consequently unfair, and women still need the permission of their husbands to acquire a passport and to leave the country.
Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Iran is a ’nuclear nation’. On a roundtrip of the Middle East this week, Hillary Clinton warned that Iran is on the verge of becoming a military dictatorship. Ebadi agrees:
-President Ahmadinejad has given the Revolutionary Guard an ever broader mandate, which now extends to sectors that should not be under military control. This includes the country’s telecommunications and the handling of oil contracts. The President himself is also a member of the Guard, and his new government has recruited many more members from this institutions than previous Iranian governments. In terms of personnel in leading positions, even the clergy is now getting ever more militarised. This does not weaken the religious influence over Iranian politics, though. What it implies, is only that moderate and progressive scholars are increasingly sidelined. Left are only the the uncompromising extremists, who always supported the Revolutionary Guard, but now also get direct political power.
Since the revolution, the UN has made some 25 resolutions criticising Iran for its violations of human rights. Iranian authorities responds that such criticism amounts to no more than undue interventions in internal affairs.
And Iran itself does not shy away from criticising Lebanon, the Palestine and other countries around the world, among them Norway (during the UPR hearing of Norway at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last December), for their human rights records.
-Human rights are not just ’an internal issue’. Whatever happens, anywhere in the world, is the concern of the whole world. As Irabian authorities consider it their right to criticise others, elsewhere, the rest of the world also has the right and the responsibility to criticise human rights violations in Iran.
-The world has engaged with Iran. Iran has not responsed with anywhere near the same engagement. Even so, the response of the West should not be to isolate Iran with economic sanctions as has been tried elsewhere before. For one thing, this will do more harm than good to the Iranian people. For another, Iranian authorities will balance their losses from a trade embargo with the west through their good relations with both the People´s Republic of China and the Russian Federation. One should always try dialogue and negotiations first. As a natural follow-up by the nations who have put their name to the many UN resolutions, the message should be conveyed politically, through degradations of diplomatic relations from full embassies to consulates. In addition, official Iranian delegations should experience that visas are no longer automatically given. Individuals that can be held responsible for human rights violations, should not get visas.
Ebadi herself left Iran the day before the elections to participate in a seminar in Spain. During the three days she intended to be away, though, the situation back home changed dramatically. Many of her colleagues were arrested, and those who were not were unanimously of the opinion that Iran would be better served with Ebadi staying out of the country, advocating for further international pressure on the country’s authorities, especially now that so many foreign correspondents had been expelled and censorship had reached such levels internally that it would be difficult to maintain the flow of human rights related news out of the country.
By the time Ebadi decided to leave her home country, at this stage indefinitely, her Nobel medal and diploma had already been confiscated. Likewise, the offices she bought for parts of the Nobel money were also expropriated last year, and all her own and her husbands assets have been frozen. This also includes the fund she set up to help and compensate victims of human rights violations. Six years after Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, she has even received a claim for overdue tax on this money. Ebadi’s family receives threats, and her sister, who has never been involved in politics, has been arrested. Ebadi’s only prospect for the future is to continue her ambulant lobbying, at least, as she herself says, ’until my colleagues need me more in Iran’. Judging from the developments Ebadi herself describes, she won’t be back in Iran, neither in a private nor in a professional capacity, in a long time.
