Iranian Nobel Peace Prize Shirin Ebadi* reports on the current situation in Iran


On the evening of the Iranian presidential election I went to Madrid to participate in a seminar which had been scheduled six months before. On Sunday (June 14th) I was about to board the plane for Tehran while friends were urging me to go to Geneva instead so that the voice of the Iranian people could be heard at the United Nations Human Rights Council. So I did. In any case, I was still going to return home to Iran, where speaking from the inside is impossible and state censorship always has the final say. Indeed, in ten days time I shall still be returning home to my husband, children and friends, and I know all too well that I could get arrested or detained. As the Persian proverb says: “My blood is not more colorful than the blood of other people”.

Meanwhile, the authorities in Iran have detained lawyer Fattah Soltani, my first assistant and a founder member of our Human Rights Defenders Center. Simultaneously, Reza Tajik the journalist in charge of our website was arrested at his house while seven individuals who cooperate with our network were also detained. The families of those nine human rights defenders do not know where they are. Tajik and Soltani may have been taken to the Secret Police section in Aiween prison, north of Tehran. Other activists are still working trying to collect information to publish it on our government-monitored web site. The truth is that this is how things have been ever since December, when they closed our Center. This latest circumstance simply aggravates the situation.

With regard to current developments within Iran, information I am receiving from both reporters and activists on the ground suggests that people are clustering around the Iranian cities of Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Mashad and Tehran. According to these sources, around 500 people have been detained throughout Iran. The worry is that, if the Iranian authorities continue reacting in this uncouth and stupid manner, we run the risk of sharp clashes taking place. This could provoke the beginnings of civil war in the country. The fact, however, is that to date people have tended towards peaceful protest rather than confrontation. What is more, if the election results are not annulled and new elections undertaken under the watchful eye of international observers and international bodies, the situation cannot be calmed.

In my recent meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Ms. Navanethem Pillay), I explained that the Iranian people are raising their voices in peaceful demonstrations in order to express their hopes and demands. I emphasized the importance of ensuring that the government does not continue the use of violence against demonstrators. In the first peaceful demonstration 7 people were killed. And in the attack carried out by the Basij (a widespread militia subordinate to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard) on Sunday, 14th June in a 3 a.m raid on Tehran University, five further people were killed. This included two girls, and injured a large number of students. None of their bodies have as yet been delivered to their families.

I very much hope that Ms. Pillay will dedicate every avenue and channel available to her to stop the Iranian authorities from continuing down this path. What is more, the Human Rights Council must intervene. If intervention to protect the killing of unarmed people who are peacefully demonstrating in the streets of Tehran is not within the prerogative of the Human Rights Council, and is not to be considered a violation of human rights, then I would like someone to explain to me the role of the “Human Rights Council”.

*Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer. In 2003 she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her outstanding work in favour of democracy and human rights. She was the first ever Iranian citizen to have received the prize.

EU thinks it has 'leverage' over Syrian human rights

FDPOC says EU is “not moving smartly”

FDPOC has today thanked Graham Watson, the leader of the Liberal Group in the European Parliament (left), for his keen interest in the situation of prisoners of conscience in Syria.

“While ranks seem to be currently closed within Europe regarding the new softer approach to Syria made fashionable by French leader Sarkozy, the rush of foreign representatives to Damascus which has followed has done little to comfort the many courageous democracy and human rights leaders languishing in Syria’s jail,” stated Director Wissam Tarif.

“The EU is, regrettably, not moving smartly.”

“While nothing would give us greater pleasure than to find that Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner (left) is justified in her belief that she will be obtaining ‘leverage’ on human rights over Syria by signing an Association Agreement of commercial importance to the regime without first having extracted the release of human rights and conscience-issue prisoners as part of the package, we are less than hopeful of this strategy and, it has to be said, from our information on the ground in Syria, the EU’s move is less than smart.”

“Indeed, all the indicators are that Damascus feels more invincible than ever today. Through skilful game-playing, it feels it has positioned itself as a pivotal player on regional issues, so much so that it believes its ruthless internal policies will not be touched by the international community. In this, the EU may well have committed a serious and damaging mistake for which ordinary Syrians on the ground will continue paying the price.”

“Nonetheless,” concluded Mr Tarif, “FDPOC will continue to monitor the situation and work with allies in Europe and elsewhere, keeping the profile as high as possible to ensure that the very real human suffering that is quietly going on in the jails of Syria is noticed in the international corridors of power.”

EU Commissioner abandons conscience

Human rights organization FDPOC has reacted strongly to news that Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Commissioner for External Relations and Neighbourhood Policy has announced, in a press release today, that she will be recommending the EU should sign a Partnership Agreement with Syria. The development comes after a joint meeting was held between Ferrero-Waldner and Syrian Vice Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Abdullah al-Dardari (both pictured left) and follows four years during which the EU has had reservations on continuing with the Agreement process as a result of Syria’s track record on a range of issues, including prisoners of conscience and human rights in the country.

FDPOC Director, Wissam Tarif, speaking from Berlin, expressed “total dismay that the Commissioner should completely ignore the European Parliament’s strong demands that Syria must free prisoners of conscience, end martial law, and improve its overall democratic credentials as what it called ‘prerequisites” for further developments in the EU-Syria relationship.

“Despite all this, Ms Ferrero-Waldner has seen fit today to publicly overlook all of that in favour of cold pragmatism. She is ruthlessly exercising realpolitik and putting political interest before the interest of ordinary people in Syria. This is a mistake the scale of which, as a European, the Commissioner should need few lessons in or references to be pointed at, since what is going on in Syria today is nothing more nor less than a total subjugation of ordinary people by a ruthless regime.

“FDPOC has been very active warning the EU of the strategic mistake any move on signing the Partnership Agreement will imply in the coming years. While the Ba’ath government of Bashar al-Assad is playing their negotiating hand astutely, the Commissioner and the present Presidency is only strengthening the Syrian regime.

“We owe more than that to ordinary people in Syria who are already asking themselves: why does the EU only consider its political interests while overlooking our friends and families, who are constantly being murdered and locked up for standing up to liberty and justice?”

“Has the Commissioner forgotten Syrian prisoners of conscience such as Kamal Labwani, who is serving a 15 year jail term for advocating democracy? Or is she unaware of the fact that despite a Damascus judge’s decision to release democracy activists Michel Kilo and Mahmoud Issa barely weeks ago from prison, the Syrian government has still not complied with the judicial order?

“As a bare minimum, Ms Ferrero-Waldner must require the government of President Bashar al-Assad to release prisoners of conscience and human rights activists from jail as a prerequisite for her recommendation to Member States to sign any Partnership Agreement with Syria.

Mr Tarif closes by pledging that his organisation will “devote all its resources to approaching each and every European parliamentarian to present the case against any recommendation for a blind signature on any Partnership Agreement with Syria which is not first accompanied by real measures to rectify the atrocious human rights situation in Syria.”

We ask the EU: why believe Dardari?

On the eve of Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah al-Dardari’s (pictured left) Brussels meeting at 11.30am Monday 24 November with Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Commissioner for External Relations, FDPOC has questioned the "EU's faith both in Syria and in Mr al-Dardari when it comes to questions of reform in the country."

“Dardari’s credentials leave a great deal to be desired,” FDPOC Director, Wissam Tarif, added. “For example, in an interview given to an Arab business news source and published in SyriaComment.com on 1 November 2005, Mr Dardari stated that “There will be a number of moves on political reforms in Syria, including the parties law, the Kurdish question and political prisoners that will take place within the next few weeks.”

“FDPOC asks: reforms – what reforms Mr Dardari? Political parties are still not free, their leaders are in your jails, and the Kurdish people continue to live with no official status as fourth class citizens.”

“More recently, in February 2007, Mr Dardari spoke about so-called political reforms in Syria to leading German newsweekly Spiegel Online. Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister had the bare face to tell Spiegel that laws “regarding elections, political parties and the media have been fundamentally revised”, when the evidence is that, if any revision has taken place, it is to make Syria more repressive, more undemocratic and less free. The law of associations in the country continues to prevent political and human rights groups from operating freely, a new land law has been introduced to prevent the Kurdish population from being able to freely buy and sell property in an effort to squeeze them economically and to drive them to specific Syrian ghettos, and, most recently, new legislation is now in place which allows those who murder and torture on behalf of the State to enjoy an immunity which in practical terms is almost impossible to challenge.”

Mr Tarif goes on to question the European Union’s ‘faith in Dardari and Syria’. An attitude which, he says, is reflected time and again.

“For example in a 2006 Report on Syria, the EU talks with some hope of ‘conspicuous’ change in Damascus, and notes the inclusion of “younger figures close to President Al-Assad” citing as a basis for such hope “the appointment of Abdallah Dardari as deputy prime minister.

“As the EU considers its position regarding the signing of the EU-Syria Agreement, it must also consider the facts and the realities: Mr Dardari, whatever personal intentions he might have, has not and does not deliver reform. And Mr Dardari’s talk, according to the proof, is less than credible.

“FDPOC counsels caution as Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner engages with Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister. For the incontrovertible facts are that prisoners of conscience still linger in Syria’s jails, political and human rights groups still continue to be harassed and locked up, and far from being resolved, the Kurds in Syria are still being hounded by the government to which Mr Dardari belongs.

“FDPOC puts the issue to Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner in the very words of paragraph J2 of the EU’s 2006 Motion for a European Parliament Resolution on Syria by saying “that respect for democratic values, human rights and civil liberties are prerequisites.

“This word ‘prerequisite’ must lead to one practical conclusion for the Commissioner: there can be no signature to the EU-Syria Agreement until emergency law is dismantled, prisoners of conscience are set free, immunity protection for human rights violators is withdrawn, and the Kurdish citizens of Syria are given full nationality status. This is the meaning of the European Parliament’s Motion two years ago.

“If the EU is serious in wanting a reform process to take place in Syria, they must not only paint beautiful pictures, they must walk their talk. This means that Dardari must be made to understand that Europe is serious about Human Rights and the plight of prisoners of conscience. In so doing, it will be consistent and show respect for its own repeated parliamentary declarations and motions.

“The Regime is calculating and masters of spin, but Europe now must give a clear message that there will be no progress for Syria without serious and verifiable progress on human rights and prisoners of conscience as initial proof that Syria can be counted on as a worthy neighbour. Those who would not respect democracy, but instead who wish to exploit its openness, must be shown with resolve that their game will not succeed,” Mr Tarif ended.

EU must end Syria's licence to kill

FDPOC is calling on the EU to “not allow itself to be a partner in Syria’s crimes”.

Felix Alvarez, European Coordinator for the organisation, is approaching European parliamentarians and institutions to require, among other things, the repeal of what is known inside Syria as “Law 64” as part of considerations for the signing of an agreement between the EU and Syria.

“This law is nothing less than the Syrian government’s licence to kill and assassinate its own people without due process of law.”

“Sarkozy and the European Union have a responsibility not to look the other way when the Syrian government has introduced a law making the routine State murder of opponents and human rights campaigners simple, routine, and practically unquestionable .

“There are signs that even within the military, law 64 is being used to protect abuse of personnel. On 19 November, Mohamed Khalil Amran, a young military police conscript of 18 years was killed by a superior officer at the Mashrou Domar Military Police in Damascus. The incident, as so many others before it, has been hidden from public view. Law 64 grants total immunity to the killer of this young man."

Wissam Tarif, FDPOC Director, goes on to explain that what is known as “law 64” in Syria was approved by the Syrian president last September. “It gives total immunity to security forces in the country to go ahead and murder anyone they want. The only control over the ruthless killing of opponents and human rights activists in Syria is the Commander of the Armed Forces, and noone can be expected to believe such a figure to be impartial or fair in today’s Syria.”

"At least six people have been murdered by the Syrian security forces since the introduction of this law without anyone having any right whatsoever to explanations, public inquiries or any other kind of open scrutiny. It is the most clear evidence that Syrian citizens today are defenceless before the machinery of State in a daily denial of the rule of law.

"Abed al-Lah Bitar was tortured for forty days by the security services and the body delivered to his family on 29 October. They were too terrified for the fate of their other sons to complain or say anything at all. Sami Maatouq was a University graduate and a human rights activist, something which the Syrian government did not like and they had him eliminated on the evening of 14 October. In that same assassination, the Syrians killed a friend of Maatouq’s who was with him at the time as well as two innocent passers-by. Ahmad Ramadan was wanted by the Syrian security forces for his political differences with the regime. They took his wife hostage and made her release conditional upon his appearance at their offices. He was shot in the head on 13 October when he did so.

The law which Syria’s regime is now hiding behind to give its killing sprees a veneer of legitimacy is unacceptable. FDPOC is calling on all member states of the European Union to pressure President Sarkozy to demand the repeal of this law and for the introduction of the rule of law in Syria.

“To anyone who knows the realities of Syria today, none of this comes as any surprise. Before this law’s introduction, State-sponsored killing was already a routine part of the machinery of state: on 20 March this year, Muhammad Yahya Khalil, Muhammad Zaki Ramadan , and Muhammad Mahmud Hussein were killed while celebrating Kurdish new Year in Kamishli, to the north of the country. Those wounded include Muhieldin Hajj Jamil `Issa, Karam Ibrahim Yusif, Muhammad Kheir Khalaf `Issa, Riad Yussef Sheikhi, and Khalil Sulayman Hussein. And earlier on, on 5 July this year, twenty-five inmates were killed in Saydanaya prison, with an unknown number injured. This was followed with extended torture and solitary confinement for large numbers of prisoners.

“The Syrian government must be held to account for both the arbitrary killing of citizens and the absence of due process of law. Law 64 is not only a licence to kill political opponents, but those ordinary Syrian citizens whose only crime is to want freedom and justice. It must be repealed without further delay.”

Syria laughs in West's face

“Once again the Syrian government and visiting foreign politicians are talking together, but why do they ignore us, the ordinary Syrian people? Iraq, Lebanon and the peace process are important issues, but are Syrians themselves less important?”

Unreported comments like these by everyday Syrians have been made all day long in Damascus following the visit of British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, to talks with President Bashar al-Assad (left). In statements to the press today, Miliband confirmed that the pressing questions of Syria’s role as a regional intermediary on issues such as the Israeli-Arab peace process, the face-off with Iraq-Iran and the thorny issue of relations between Syria and Lebanon had been the main focus of official discussions.

FDPOC has reacted to the visit by saying that “At the very same time that Mr Milliband was fielding questions in one location in Damascus, the Syrians were sentencing Mustapha al-Dalati, a pro-democracy advocate at another.”

“In a society where strict control of all institutions is routine, the fact that the Syrian government allowed the embarrassment of a human rights sentence to be passed under Mr Milliband’s very nose while he stood in front of the cameras, has been seen by many as a true reflection of the powerful position the al-Assad regime now considers itself to be in with respect to the international community.

“The Syrians are well aware that the world now considers them to be central in any plans to stabilise the region and are capitalising on the fact that the West has jumped from a situation of totally isolating Syria to catapulting it into the diplomatic limelight. The regime is now glorying in what it considers to be a powerful international negotiating role. From the evidence of the way they continue to act with impunity despite strong words of Western condemnation, this strong position will continue to allow them to act with total licence in crushing democratic opposition within the country.

“Despite the fact that it is no more than just a few weeks since Miliband (left) publicly called on Syria to “allow its citizens to practise the right to freedom of expression and association without fear of sanction”, the British Foreign Secretary has been put in a difficult diplomatic position through Syria’s calculated discourtesy today. Calculated, in fact, to the extent that the democracy activist sentenced during Miliband’s visit belonged to the very group for whom the Minister had issued a strong demand for release. This is a weak and unfortunate position for British diplomacy to be in. While, nonetheless, it is true to say that European politicians are forthright in their condemnations of Syria’s appalling human rights track record, their appetite for pressing the regime on the locking up of opponents, human rights activists and intellectuals seems to routinely vanish in their face-to-face meetings with the regime.

“The al-Assad government now feels strong, very strong,” FDPOC’s correspondent in Damascus today stated. “And people here feel that that strength is being practised on them, and they are afraid. International visitors, whether Sarkozy or Miliband, have succeeded in talking with the Syrian regime, but people here on the ground feel they are failing to talk to them and their very real concerns.”

FDPOC has recently written to the EU Vice President, the UN’s Commissioner for Human Rights and others in order to bring what it calls “the pressing need for human rights to be at the very centre of the international community’s conversations with Syria”

UN & EU asked to act on Syrian human rights

FDPOC has asked the Vice President of the EU, Jacques Barrot (left), to intervene directly on what it calls “the need for justice and freedom” in Syria. (See letter). A similar approach has been made to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights defenders, and the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe.

Director, Wissam Tarif, draws particular attention to measures introduced in September this year which grant immunity to violators of human rights in Syria. This, he points out, amounts to an “unreasonable impunity being provided by the Syrian State in its approach to human rights.”

He adds that, 45 years after its introduction, Emergency Law in Syria continues to be used as a means for the State to deny Syrian citizens fundamental rights which are otherwise guaranteed by the Syrian Constitution. He highlights the situation of human rights groups, which are prevented from freely doing their work by restrictive laws which may prevent them from being officially established or of having to live with the constant threat of being closed down. Human rights workers, in fact, are routinely prevented from travelling freely outside of the country.In its letter, the organisation publishes a list of 21 prisoners of conscience currently detained by Syria. They range from political to human rights activists, and, in its recommendations, FDPOC requests that these people “must be released immediately and unconditionally.”

In further concerns, the FDPOC Director makes the case regarding the Syrian Kurdish population, emphasising the level of persecution these citizens are subjected to within their own country, and, significantly, quotes a series of resolutions undertaken by the governing Ba’ath Party’s 10th National Conference in 2005 in which acknowledgment was given to the non-mention of the Kurdish community in official census statistics.

Commenting on this, he stated that “No action has, in fact, been taken as yet to rectify the negative consequences of such treatment. To the contrary, new legislation was introduced in September this year to specifically target Syrian Kurds with further discriminatory measures.” In a wide-ranging set of recommendations, FDPOC points out that the Syrian Security Services should stop arbitrary arrest and practices which interfere with the freedom of expression and liberty of citizens, as well as the elimination of emergency law and other legal provisions in Syria which, in its view, are fundamental obstacles to the freedom of citizens in the country.

In a statement to the Press, Mr Tarif explained that “It is no longer acceptable for the international community to restrict itself to addressing regional issues – the Syria-Israel peace process, the Syria-Iraq border, and the relationship between Syria and Lebanon. These have been the three axes on which they have been willing to act till now. A fourth axis must now be added: human rights, as a fundamental to building the kind of societies where peace and stability are established.” In a further move, an FDPOC spokesman revealed that a Delegation from his organisation is currently in Europe and plans are already well advanced for it to also approach representatives of the new US administration in the early part of 2009.

FEATURE ARTICLE: Sixty years on

Wissam Tarif, FDPOC Director (left), currently in Brussels, reports directly from the European Parliament on a Conference held there and organised by the European Union, in conjunction with the United Nations and the Council of Europe in which the Defenders of human rights take centre stage.

The occasion of the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary since the establishment of the Declaration of Human Rights by the UN, puts in evidence the ugly fact that many countries still routinely violate the fundamental rights of their citizens. And they do so while signing the Declaration and other international human rights treaties.

In a revealing article, Mr Tarif talks openly of the situation facing real people fighting for human rights in their countries, and points the way forward in an insightful analysis of the regional framework in the Middle East. (Continue)

Protestors released in Syria

Damascus, Monday 3 Nov 2008: FDPOC sources in Syria confirmed late last night that a total of 191 protestors previously arrested and detained by Security Police following a demonstration held outside the Parliament building in Damascus (see below earlier report) had been released. Despite the fact that, technically, the right to peaceful demonstration and freedom of expression are guaranteed under Syria’s Constitution, Emergency Law in place since 1963 allows the government to prevent any type of protest.

In an unprecedented move, the Syrian Minister of Interior met the organizers of the protest while they were held in custody and explained that his government “does not target the Kurds with the protested law 49”. The obligatory ‘meeting’ held by the Minister while protestors were still in detention, may explain the reason for the high presence of police at the headquarters building to which those arrested were taken. It has been suggested that if the Minister wished to dialogue or explain the background to his government’s legislative moves, it would have been easier and perhaps more democratic to call those concerned to his office instead of speaking to them in the circumstances of what, to all intents and purposes, adds up to the otherwise unacceptable arrest of lawful protestors.

In contrast to the ‘conciliatory’ message the Minister wished to convey, no doubt designed to absorb Kurdish anger internally, there is also reason to suspect his move as forming part of the al-Assad regime's image management when playing to Europe and the West, post-Sarkozy. There is no doubt that al-Assad’s posing outside the Elysee Palace, with the French President’s later visit to Damascus will be factors the Syrians keep to the fore in their considerations.

In sharp contrast, however, to what the Syrian regime would like the outside world to believe, the fact that the leading organizer of yesterday’s demonstration, Hassan Saleh, member of the Political Committee of the Yakiti Kurdish Party in Syria, was the only person who was not released from detention tells a very different story.