Why has Amnesty
International invited a stooge of the Iranian regime to a Congressional hearing
on Iranian human rights abuses?
Human Rights
Travesty
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 13, 2007
(July 18, 2007) If
human rights abuses were ranked like baseball careers, Iranıs ruling clerics
and the mighty midget theyıve installed as president would deserve honored
places in the 21st Centuryıs Hall of Shame.
On July 10, Iranıs
Interior ministry confirmed the sentence, handed down ten days earlier by a
court in the north of the country, condemning a man to death by stoning.
If youıve never
witnessed a stoning (and most of us havenıt, I trust), you can get a flavor for
the barbarity of this Koranic punishment from a short video clip shot at
one of these events.
The fellows in military
dress belong to the bassij force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, the
thugs and enforcers the regime uses to cow the Iranian population or, as in
this case, to whip up the frenzy of its remaining supporters.
The YouTube version of
stoning is mercifully brief. Iranian human rights activist Dr. Manouchehr Ganji
sat down with me a few years ago and showed me the full Monty, and itıs not a
pretty sight. You see, the rocks have to be just the right size: not too large,
so they wonıt kill the victim outright, and not too small, as to be harmless.
The victim is wrapped in
a white shroud and cemented into a hole in the ground up to the waist, arms
wrapped to his sides. It can take fifteen minutes or more of pounding by the
crowd for the first blood to appear through the shroud. Until then, the crowd
seems to just mill about. Some are just curious onlookers. The bassijis, always
helpful, have rocks ready and make sure that everyone gets their shot. Many of
them miss the target.
But when the blood
appears, the bassijis go wild. This part has been censored from the YouTube
version. This is where they break free from the circle and make their mad
dashes up close to the victim, smashing their skull with rocks. They come in
like banderillos at a bullfight, or like vultures descending on carrion. In the
video Dr. Ganji showed me, you can see the froth on their lips.
Even when the victim
lurches forward, no longer able to stand upright in the hole, they continue to
dash forward with their rocks. By this time, the white shroud has become soaked
with blood. You can see them screaming in hate as they pound the bloody rags
that the white shroud has become.
Welcome to the Islamic
Republic of Iran, where the chairman of the Iranian Human Rights (sic)
committee argues
that stoning is an appropriate punishment. (Thanks to Michael Ledeen and Pyjamas
media for that link).
International human
rights organizations such as Amnesty International and even the left-leaning
Human Rights Watch (which spends more effort blasting Americaıs presence in
Iraq than it ever did exposing Saddam Husseinıs crimes against his own people)
generally have done a good job in exposing the Islamic regimeıs abuses over the
years.
They will present some
of this evidence at an informal hearing organized from 12:00-2:30 PM in room
B369 of the Rayburn House Office Building on Thursday, July 26.
But in a travesty that
defies comprehension, the moderator of this panel on Iranian regime human
rights abuses is an individual I have described in these pages as ³the mullahsı
voice² in Washington, DC.
Trita Parsi has been
very active in creating a pro-regime lobby to oppose U.S. sanctions on Iran. He
has also criticized the Bush administration for its half-hearted attempt to
provide funding for pro-democracy activists inside Iran.
But he has never joined
the front lines of the struggle on behalf of human rights in Iran. On the
contrary, by arguing that the United States and the West should cut a deal with
the Tehran regime, he has been denounced by pro-democracy activist Banafsheh
Zand-Bonazzi the daughter of long-time jailed journalist Siamak Pourzand - as ³un-Iranian.²
Independent Iranian
writer Hassan Dailoleslam, who
exposed Trita Parsiıs ties to key figures in the Iran oil mafia in April,
believes that this latest venture is an attempt by the regime to use human
rights as a bargaining chip with the West.
The goal of the Iranian
lobby is ³to present human rights as a negotiating item on the engagement table
in hopes of getting human rights organizations to argue for Tehran-friendly
rapprochement, easing of sanctions and tolerance of a nuclear Iran,² he told
me.
³In a nut shell, the
lobbyıs message is that the more West pressures the regime, the more violent it
becomes, hence, lift the pressure.²
Parsiıs lawyer, Afshin
Pishavar, has accused me of publishing ³false and defamatory² information about
NIAC.
To what facts did NIAC
object? Apparently none, because none are mentioned in the lawyerıs June 19,
2007 letter, which is addressed to Voice of America and, while mentioning my
article, focuses instead on other issues.
NIACıs initial on-line
³rebuttal² of my article states that I equated
³opposition to a US-Iran war with support for the Iranian government,² and then
refers to my ³support for war² with Iran.
In fact, as
readers of this page know, I have argued consistently that war with Iran is the
last, worst option that will be thrust upon the United States if we donıt take
the wiser course, which is to support the legitimate aspirations of the Iranian
people to freedom.
This
not-so-subtle twisting of message and intent seeks to disguise the real agenda
of Trita Parsi and NIAC, which is to support a negotiated deal with so-called
³reformist² elements in Tehran, led by former Iranian president Ali Akbar
Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a multi-billionaire cleric who was defeated by Ahmadinejad
in the 2005 presidential elections.
NIAC admits
this without a flinch. Referring to a C-SPAN appearance which I criticized in
my earlier piece, NIAC
noted that ³Mr. Parsi insists that the US should follow the Iraq Study
Groupıs recommendation to pursue diplomacy with Iran.²
NIAC has consistently
opposed U.S. assistance to pro-democracy groups in Iran.
When Senator Sam
Brownback (R, KS) unveiled the original Iran Democracy Act in 2003, NIAC
noted that 80% of users of its on-line legislative center opposed the bill,
which provided $50 million to pro-democracy groups.
For someone such as
Trita Parsi to be mentioned in the same sentence as the phrase ³human rights²
is a travesty For him to host a panel to discuss human rights abuses in Iran
defies comprehension.
Liberals and
conservatives have found rare unity when it comes to opposing the radical,
terrorist regime in Tehran. In the California legislature, Democrats and
Republicans unanimously supported Assembly
Bill 221, to disinvest the state pension funds from companies doing
business in the Iranian oil and gas sector.
In the U.S. Congress,
Democrats and Republicans regularly work together to strengthen U.S. sanctions
on Iran, and to expand funding for the pro-democracy movement.
But NIACıs agenda is
different. As the group announced just this week, they support
expanded U.S. talks with Iran ³to include issues
of contention between the two countries² that go well beyond Iranian support
for Iraqi terrorist groups.
In Tehran, dissident
cleric Ayatollah Hossein Kazameni Borujerdi waits on death row after his
execution was temporarily stayed on June 25. His crime? Opposing absolute rule
of the clergy.
Borujerdi recently appealed
to the Pope and to the same human rights organizations that will sit
together in Washington next week with the enemy of Iranian freedom, Trita
Parsi.
On July 10, armed thugs abducted
well-known labor leader Mansoor Osanloo as he stepped off a bus in Tehran,
shouting to passersby that he was "an enemy of Islam."
These are but a few
short takes of the most recent outrages committed by the Tehran regime against
the people of Iran. But donıt look to Mr. Parsi and his group for information
on such events, or to rally support for Iranian freedom fighters.
They are too busy lobbying Congress to lift sanctions against the Tehran regime and to negotiate a grand bargain with Tehranıs ruling clerics.