Iran: Resurrecting a Human Rights Agenda

Responding to the news that Iran had executed five Kurdish activists — seen by some as a move to intimidate oppositionists from demonstrating on the one-year anniversary of the presidential election — Roxana Saberi takes to the Washington Post to promote human rights in Iran as a “first-tier” priority. “When the U.N. Human Rights Council meets in Geneva next month, Washington and the European Union should lead calls for a resolution setting up a mechanism to investigate human rights atrocities in Iran during the past year,” she says. “A bigger push should be made to send a U.N. special envoy on human rights to Iran and to aid Iranians, including the many journalists forced to flee their country out of fear of persecution.”

Amnesty International released a statement saying that the Kurdish prisoners, two of whom it claims confessed only when subjected to torture, were executed in violation of the law. “These latest executions appear to be a blatant attempt to intimidate members of the Kurdish minority and other critics and opponents of the government in the run up to the first anniversary, on 12 June, of last year’s disputed presidential election,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa. Over at Democracy Digest, Michael Allen highlights some of the efforts by opposition members and unionists to show solidarity with the fallen Kurds and whip up a new wave of political support.

But the Leveretts aren’t as certain about the motivations behind the executions, and they find it unwise and damaging to the policy-making process for a New York Times reporter to disseminate unsubstantiated claims as part of what they believe is a less-than-subtle effort to “advance a pro-Green political agenda.”