Don't Ignore Iran

Public hanging is a rutine scene in the mullahs ruled Iran

Forbs, July 6, 2016 - In Iran, punishment for breaking the law is brutal. In May, 30 college students were sentenced to 99 lashes for having a co-ed party—but consider them lucky.
Over the past three years alone the Iranian regime has carried out over 2,400 executions, more than at any period since the revolution. This startling rate of executions was enough to give the country the title of top executioner per capita in the world. And Iran’s current and supposedly “reformist” President Hassan Rouhani , described these executions publicly in 2014 as “God’s commandments” and “laws of the parliament that belongs to the people.”
Yet this rate of executions, which disproportionately targets opposition figures and ethnic minorities, and the barbaric punishments inflicted on its own citizens, which also includes forced amputations, has elicited little more than a shrug from the West. Especially in Washington D.C. there has only been lip service and no action. This type of “concern” over “action” approach is good for short-term political gains, but the people of Iran, the Middle East and those across the globe will continue to pay a high price in real terms.


We can’t ignore Iran


Our history books are littered with examples. The decision to not get involved in Rwanda enabled genocide, the decision to not act decisively on North Korea left a growing nuclear threat and the decision to ignore Syria helped the Assad regime on one end and extremist groups on the other, including ISIS. We must not ignore Iran.
The Iranian regime’s ideology, combined with their continued push towards nuclear weapons [via public ballistic missile tests], their unabated sewing of turmoil and sponsorship of terrorism in the region, along with their domestic abuses make them a particularly worrying case vis-à-vis inaction.


So what’s next?


We can certainly agree what Iran should not be and that is another Iraq war. A simply militaristic approach with a top-down aim of imposing democracy from the outside, combined with a long military occupation is a very bad idea. Luckily, there are many avenues of involvement, all of which involve empowering the Iranian people themselves to embrace a democratic system we already know they support.


An alternative to Iran’s current theocracy


The National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ) is the largest organized opposition to Iran’s current theocracy. They are led by Maryam Rajavi who espouses the idea of a free and democratic Iran that fosters separation of church and state, a moderate and progressive Islam, friendly ties with neighbors and the international community, and an embrace of international norms including abolition of capital punishment. The NCRI had advocated for real-world solutions in order for the international community to help the Iranian people achieve this goal, solutions that include heightened economic sanctions on the theocratic leaders and those responsible for human rights abuses in Iran, a recognition of Iran’s human rights record and violent foreign policy, along with approaches vis-à-vis the nuclear program that are more well adapted to an Iran that has time and again deceived the international community.
The People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI or MeK), the principal Iranian resistance movement, is at the core of the NCRI. Actually it was PMOI activists who exposed the Iranian regime’s clandestine nuclear sites, alarming the world about the threat of Iran’s secret program to acquire nuclear weapons.


Let the Iranian voice for democracy be heard


On July 9 the Iranians will hold an important international event aimed at making Iranian voice for democracy heard. The event, entitled “Free Iran” will be attended by hundreds of international dignitaries, including a stellar bipartisan list of American dignitaries, a unique phenomenon given the polarized election season in the U.S. As the U.S. is moving towards choosing a new president, having the right policy on Iran will be a daunting challenge for whoever will be at the Oval Office this time next year.
It is up to us in the West to fight for the rights of those who do not have a voice around the globe and perhaps nowhere is that more important and with more of a potential positive effect than Iran.
To not speak up and defend moderate Islam against extremism would be letting evil triumph.



Guest post written by Sir David Amess
Mr. Amess is Conservative MP for Southend West in the House of Commons and co-chair of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom.

URGENT ACTION: JUVENILE OFFENDER FACES THE GALLOWS AGAIN

Juvenile offender Salar Shadizadi has been rescheduled for execution on Saturday 28 November, despite the prohibition on the use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders under international law and standards, and his right to be granted a re-trial under Iran’s own domestic law.

Salar Shadizadi, now aged 24, was sentenced to death by Branch 11 of the Provincial Criminal Court of Gilan Province in December 2007 for stabbing his childhood friend. He was 15 years old at the time. The sentence was upheld by Branch 37 of the Supreme Court in March 20 08 and approved by the Head of the Judiciary in May 2013. Since then, the authorities have twice scheduled the execution and later postponed it. They have, however, failed to take the steps necessary to ensure that Salar Shadizadi is granted a re-trial, even though the General Board of Iran’s Supreme Court has ruled that all those on death row for crimes committed when they were under 18 are entitled to receive a re-trial based on the new juvenile sentencing provisions of Iran’s 2013 Islamic Penal Code.
Salar Shadizadi was arrested in February 2007 and charged with the murder of a friend when he was 15 years old. He was not granted access to a lawyer at the investigative stage and was only allowed to retain a lawyer when his case was sent to court for trial. He says that he was also tortured and otherwise ill-treated during the investigative stage. In a will letter written from prison in November 2015, Salar Shadizadi has revealed, for the first time, how he unintentionally caused the “catastrophic” death of his childhood friend by unintentionally stabbing a frightening moving object, covered in green cloth, in the dark, which he then realized to be his deceased friend. He writes that this happened in the context of a “silly game” where his friend had dared him to go to their family garden at night, knowing that Salar Shadizadi was afraid of the dark and had been warned by his grandmother since childhood that the garden is haunted by “evil spirits” (jen). The execution of Salar Shadizadi was scheduled on 1 August 2015 but was postponed at the last minute, possibly as a result of international pressure.