Part I of III

As United States 2008 presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama bickered over how they would “handle the Iran threat” in their first debate on Friday night, citing erroneous facts and competing with one another on who would hold out the longest from engaging in diplomatic talks with Iran, a small group of one-hundred and fifty American citizens representing fifty of the country’s most prominent peace and human rights groups were busy talking to the world’s media about the two-hour private meeting they held with the Iranian President two days prior.

The meeting – which was not revealed to the media until the next day to assure the safety and security for those in attendance – took place on Wednesday September 24 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City during the 63rd annual United Nations General Assembly Meeting. The goal of the meeting was “to introduce President Ahmadinejad to the peace community in the United States and to illustrate how this sector of civil society works to oppose war and the use of violence to resolve differences,” said the meeting’s facilitator, Mark Johnson, Executive Director of the global Fellowship of Reconciliation, the world’s oldest peace organization.

In an exhilarating live experiment in civilian diplomacy in action, the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt Hotel was transformed into a veritable who’s who of some of the most outspoken and prominent members of America’s peace, anti-war, and human rights organizations, including Medea Benjamin of A Global Exchange, Jodie Evans of Code Pink and Women for Peace, Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition, yours truly representing PeaceWithIran.com, and Leslie Cagan of United for Peace and Justice. There were also representatives from Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Mennonites, the Lutheran Peace Fellowship, American Friends Committee on National Legislation, and the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, among many others. American citizens flew in from almost all fifty states to hold the private meeting with President Ahmadinejad in an effort to begin the process of what many consider long overdue open dialogues with Iran regarding how our two nations can work peaceably together to secure more peaceful relations with one another.

The issues raised during the two-hour plus talk, many considered vital for the future security of both the United States and Iranian citizenry, revolved around how the countries can begin putting aside their mutual distrust of one another in order to move forward in peaceful negotiations; both the US and the Iranian government’s recent crackdown on human rights, freedom of assembly, and dissidents; the current US occupation of Iraq; Iran’s controversially viewed policy toward Israel; their treatment of women and other minorities; the difficulty on both sides of obtaining visas to visit either country. Of course the big issue of the moment, will Iran accept a compromise on its nuclear fuel enrichment program, was also addressed.

Ahmadinejad was joined by his Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, and Iran UN Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee. After already participating in two full days of talks with leaders from all over the globe, the Iranian President seemed tired, but he spoke eloquently, near poetically, and many of the points he made and the answers he gave to our questions were illuminating and insightful. In response to Iran’s nuclear energy program – a subject that the United States government continues to demonize in unsubstantiated propaganda to the American media though it has the support of one-hundred and eighteen other UN nation-states around the planet – Ahmadinejad reasserted for the umpteenth time that Iran has allowed more IAEA inspections of their nuclear facilities than any other country in the world to date, and that they discontinued pursuing nuclear weapons in 2005. A fact that has been confirmed and reconfirmed by all thirteen US Intelligence Agencies including the NSA, the FBI, and the CIA countless times over the last three years.

Why the White House persists in attempting to publicly frame Iran’s nuclear energy program as “a threat to American security” remains a mystery. As does why the US government continues to refuse to speak with or enter into diplomatic talks with Iran while other countries such as Iraq, Japan, Italy, China, Pakistan, and Russia are now jumping at it. Bear in mind that Iran currently sits on the second largest oil deposit on the planet. He told us that US President George W. Bush missed a historic opportunity when he didn’t respond to the Iran President’s 2006 letter inviting him to talk, an opportunity that could have begun a reconciliation of the two countries’ 28 year cold war of silence. As an American citizen I couldn’t help but feel a sense of bitterness and regret — as if we were indeed a winning team but could still lose the game because we simply suffer from having a bad captain.

Ahmadinejad also commented about how the United States, the UK, France and Canada supported, cooperated with, and even gave nuclear technology information to the pre-1979 regime ruled by the US-installed dictator, the Shah of Iran but now “When there were no elections in Iran, they wanted us to be a nuclear power. As soon as there were elections, they didn’t want us to be a nuclear power.” The room roared with laughter at the obvious irony. As a passionately patriotic American – granted, more of the ideals we talk rather than the missteps our government often walks, especially with our foreign policy over the last fifty years – I felt proud knowing that this might be the first time an Iranian government leader was in a room with living breathing American’s who actually understood and fought for America’s promise and potential of real democracy and liberty for all, rather than feeling bullied, threatened, and manipulated as many smaller countries feel in their dealings with the United States government today.

I was reminded of the shock I felt when I first learned just a few short months ago that in 1950 Iran had their first democratic revolution and in 1953 the CIA and the UK, under Operation Ajax, orchestrated a coup d’etat and ousted Iran’s new democratically elected Prime Minister Mosaddeq sending him into exile and installed a puppet regime that they could control easily in the form of The Shah so both countries could reap giant profits from Iran’s enormous oil supply while that country’s people struggled in poverty and fell behind the rest of the world in technology, social services, and infrastructure for thirty more years. I also contemplated how as children we are taught to honor, respect, and celebrate our own American Revolution while at the same time being advised that we should disrespect, fear, and dishonor the Iranian people’s own Democratic Revolution.

But as important as that little bit of history is for all Americans to have knowledge of, that’s in the past and here we were, twenty-eight years later, American citizens no longer able to bear the archaic bullheaded imperialist system that refuses to practice in real life what it preaches to its children in school, taking matters into our own hands and sitting down in the first ever diplomatic talks with the relatively new democratically-elected Iranian government to help begin to build a bridge of shared values and mutual agreements: mainly, that “we must work together to form a wave of citizens who are dedicated to world peace for all citizens of the world and of all nations.”

Echoing what we heard countless times by many leading government officials when I visited Iran in March of this year, Ahmadinejad told us that Iran is politically and religiously opposed to nuclear weapons, adding: “The time for nuclear weapons has come to an end. Those who want to build a new generation of nuclear bombs are politically backward, period. Those days are over.” Again the room erupted into applause. “Did nuclear weapons help the United States in their Vietnam War? Did they help the former Soviet Union in the Cold War? Are they helping your country in the Iraq War?” Silence in the room. Perhaps it was the fact that Ahmadinejad was fasting for weeks straight due to the Muslim holiday of Ramadan. Perhaps he has just matured over the years. But his mannerisms were cool, his demeanor was calm, and the tone of his answers poetic and philosophical. He then posed the question “Doesn’t it seem odd that we are being economically sanctioned, our people strangled literally to death, and at the same time publicly threatened and attacked almost daily for attempting to harness nuclear energy for our rapidly growing economy with no intention of building nuclear weapons, by the United States who has over 10,000 functional nuclear warheads aimed at half the world? Doesn’t this seem odd and illogical?” Again, more applause.

I was speechless. Perhaps this was a first for me too. The first time that I had heard a high ranking government official, a head of State no less, speaking not only insightfully with moral and ethical undertones, but speaking truths that many of us think to ourselves privately but are afraid to utter aloud for fear of being labeled “unpatriotic” or “treasonous.” Having grown up in America in the latter half of the 20th century I was jaded from one too many politico speeches filled with nothing but empty rhetoric and flip flopping. But Iran is in a different position now than they’ve been in thousand’s of years and different than even we American citizens are. They are quickly gaining allies and support and mammoth deals with countries all over the world. They do not share the same fears that even we here at home face of being attacked for speaking their truth. They are a rapidly growing new country of strong proud people with a seven-thousand year long history, a sovereign nation who are free to say what they wish, economic sanctions and near-constant threats of military strikes be damned. All I could do was transcribe the contents of the meeting as quickly as my illegible handwriting would allow. Something told me that what I was witnessing and listening to was important to share with as many people as I could over the coming weeks and months.

This is not to say that those of us in attendance were able to agree with everything that the conservative Muslim President said during our meeting. There was plenty to take umbrage with and in fact just downright vehemently disagree with. This I will cover in Part II, along with a summary of the dialogue surrounding some of the other issues mentioned earlier in this article. But in the name of peace, which was the reason for the meeting in the first place, perhaps it best to end Part I with Ahmadinejad’s closing remarks to illustrate why many left that room that night inspired by the potential hinted at that there is power in our civil society and in non-violent civilian diplomacy to effect change in the world and to lift up democratic societies despite challenges and obstacles.

“My friends we need to create a wave of all world citizens of all backgrounds and all walks of life to create more peace in the world. We need to practice our values of our various religions and gather ourselves together to work at the pace of light itself to keep up with the pace of the world. Carrying out this mission has certain requirements based on justice and respect for all nations. If we don’t like something for ourselves, then we should not want it for other nations. Yes? What I am saying here is not complicated. These are clear-cut ideas that we need simply to put into practice.”

It is too bad that neither John McCain nor Barack Obama could have been in attendance at this historic meeting. Perhaps the contents of their debate on Friday regarding the country of Iran would have appeared more well informed and enlightened. (Both candidates mistakenly referred to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as “the Republican Guard”) If the United States is going to pull out of the numerous crises both here and abroad that it currently faces, it is going to take real change on many levels – the kind of change hyped and promoted by at least one of this election year’s presidential candidates. And one of those changes absolutely essential to our survival, let alone our thriving in the 21st century is going to be a more open door diplomatic policy towards communication with other countries that we may not see eye to eye on in all matters. But we have to start somewhere for real reconciliation to start taking place.

Ed Hale
September 27th, 2008

The Tehran Peace Museum and the Society for Chemical Weapons Victims Support
(SCWVS) are planning a candlelight vigil at 19:00 local time (10:30 EST) on September 21
to commemorate the UN-designated International Day of Peace. The organized event is a
historic first in Iran, where tensions with the United States are causing serious anxiety.
Please see the forwarded attachments for event details.
On behalf of the Tehran Peace Museum and the Society for Chemical Weapons Victims
Support (SCWVS), the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran
(CASMII), Fellowship Of Reconciliation (FOR), Payvand and Iranians For Peace (IFP) invite
your antiwar group to act on September 21 in solidarity with the nascent Iranian peace
movement. The Museum was established a year ago, inspired by a Dayton Peace Museum
director whose trip to Iran was arranged by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Earlier this
year, CASMII-US and Physicians for Social Responsibility organized a U.S. speaking tour for
representatives of SCWVS. We hope peace and justice groups like yours will help build on
these and similar successes.

We ask that people of conscience in your circle respond to active outreach among Iranians
and connect with the September 21 event there. Although this is late notice, we hope you
can arrange a candlelight vigil with a few or a few dozen others in your community that
evening.

Even a smaller gesture from Americans, such as announcing news of the Tehran ceremony
in your next newsletter or at your weekly local peace vigil, will uplift our Iranian partners
in peace. They tell us so. Please check the attachments for event details and consider
sending a message of support now to the lead international organizer in Tehran, Dr.
Shahriar Khateri, at khateri@scwvs.org . Thank you very much.

Remember Iran, the greatest threat to Western civilization since, well, Iraq? The posturing conservatives who dominated America’s foreign policy for most of the last seven years pretended the only approach that ever could or should be pursued toward the mullahs would be isolation, confrontation and, what the hell, annihilation. Who can forget the oft-repeated campaign mantra of Sen. John McCain that the only thing worse than going to war with Iran would be a nuclear-armed Iran?

Well, it turns out that a lot of things are worse. It’s funny how a reassertive Russia armed with some 10,000 all-too-real nuclear weapons puts the theoretical menace of Iran’s as yet non- existent arsenal in perspective. But, looking ahead, what’s more curious still is that a new administration–maybe even McCain’s–may start looking for ways to work with Iran to help balance Russian power.

For centuries, whenever Russia has thrashed around in the Caucasus or in Central Asia, the Persians have been among the first to feel the bear’s hot breath. The kingdoms of Georgia, one may recall, were vassals of the shahs before they were taken by the tsars in the early 19th century. Imperial Russia kept pushing decade after decade until its troops occupied even the Iranian city of Tabriz. In the 20th century, the Soviets repeatedly tried to establish variations on the theme of a Persian Socialist Republic. That’s the kind of history the millennially minded Iranians keep in mind.

It’s true that over the last 20 years, Tehran’s relations with Moscow have been much more cooperative. The Persian pariahs would take any friends they could get. But those were the decades when Russia’s sphere of influence was shrinking–and the Russian move into Georgia is a clear signal those days of timidity are over.

History, especially Caucasian, Caspian and Central Asian history has restarted with a vengeance. The dynamics of confrontation and conciliation in Iran’s neighborhood are now every bit as complicated as they were in the 19th century, when an expanding Russian empire came up against the intrigues, alliances and sometimes overt military actions of imperial Britain in the rivalry that became known as “The Great Game.” What’s needed as we start reshaping American policy to fit the new circumstances is a reality check or, perhaps better said, a realpolitik check.

Over the short run, the mullahs will reap several benefits from Russia’s play in Georgia and Western reaction to it. “If you are no longer the greatest threat du jour then you are off the hook,” says Vali Nasr, an Iran scholar affiliated with the Council on Foreign Relations. Given the diplomatic standoff between Moscow and Washington, it will be much harder to enforce U.N. Security Council sanctions leveled against Iran for pursuing its nuclear-enrichment program. Further tightening the screws will be all but impossible. At the same time, the likelihood of American-led or supported military action against Iran is also diminished. It was never a good idea, and now it would be a very dangerous distraction for the already depleted U.S. military. Israel, however worried it may be, will have to understand that.

If Iran is not already working at full speed to develop nuclear weapons (it insists its intentions are entirely peaceful), it could be expected to pick up the pace now, and not least as a deterrent to Russian expansion in its direction. On the other hand, if it pushes too hard and too fast, Moscow may start to see nuclear-armed mullahs as a dangerous distraction, and Tehran would have to take into account the possibility that Russia, in its new and aggressive posture, would act directly and ruthlessly to eliminate the threat. Under current circumstances, who would come to Iran’s defense? Even if the Iranians decide to slow down their nuclear program, or stop it, they will have to worry about Moscow’s long-term designs on oil and natural-gas deposits around the Caspian Sea, where Russia already has a fleet and already disputes Iran’s claims to a large portion of the resources beneath the water.

The incoming American administration could “play on those kinds of fears and take advantage of the opportunities,” says Nasr. “But to play that kind of game you need a lot of clarity of vision.” That hasn’t really been the hallmark of the Bush administration, nor of McCain’s rhetoric, nor of Barack Obama’s talk about talking. Indeed, the basic policy framework of the United States is built on fundamental contradictions. “We talk as if Iran is the biggest threat, but we act as if Russia is,” says Nasr.

Thus Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed a deal with Warsaw on Tuesday to put part of the American ballistic-missile shield in Poland, having long asserted that the purpose was to thwart Iran. But, um, Iran has no intercontinental ballistic missiles. Its attempt to launch a rocket into space over the weekend appears to have quite literally fizzled. Moscow, meanwhile, has hundreds of perfectly serviceable ICBMs. (We sometimes send our own American astronauts to the International Space Station on Russia’s reliable rockets.) It’s hardly surprising the Russians think the purpose of the American missile shield is to eliminate what’s left of the old strategic balance and give Washington a potential first-strike capability against Moscow. That sort of confrontation, if overplayed, could slip toward the Strangelovian standoffs of the cold war or, conceivably, something worse.

In fact, the new Great Game, like the old one, will be a long narrative of intrigue and confrontation in which there is no sudden or decisive resolution. Realism will dictate efforts to improve relations with states on Russia’s periphery whether or not their ideologies are compatible with American democratic ideals. Another Iran scholar, Gary Sick at Columbia University, believes the policymakers remaining in the Bush administration have actually come to understand this, albeit very late. “After 9/11 their world view was that the United States had limitless power,” says Sick. “I don’t think they believe that anymore. And if you really believe you have to husband your power in ways that are more cost effective, you have to change our approach to Iran.” It won’t be easy. The Iranians are hard bargainers with regional ambitions of their own, but they are not irrational, and their primary interest is security. Oddly enough, Washington may find that the U.S. benefits by helping them feel safer, not more threatened.

Read original article here: www.newsweek.com/id/154523

1. Check Stephen Kinzer’s (veteran New York Times reporter) article
on the potential relationship between events in Georgia and what may
be visited upon Iran. An important point in Kinzer’s argument is his
observation that: “American policy toward Iran has for decades been
shaped by emotion, not rationality.

” Clearly other considerations
govern U.S. foreign policy towards Iran (oil?!). Nonetheless, the
article is worth reading. It is entitled “Attacking Iran via South
Ossetia: Could the conflict between Russia and Georgia be the excuse
the Bush administration has been looking for to bomb Iran?” at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/20/usforeignpolicy.iran/print.
A pdf version is available.

2. Kinzer is the author of “All the Shah’s Men,” an excellent
account of the overthrow of Dr. Mossadeq’s government in August
1953. On the occasion, this week, of the 55th anniversary of that
momentous event, I recommend an article by Faramarz Farbod entitled,
“More than Just Another Overthrow: Let’s not Forget Mossadeq in
Iran.” The article’s abstract is as follows:

“Fifty-five years ago this week, in mid-August of 1953, Dr. Mohammad
Mossadeq, the prime minister of Iran, was toppled in a royalist coup
code-named Operation AJAX by its US and British backers. The coup
delivered a severe blow to the cause of constitutionalism, democracy,
and the rule of law in Iran, and ultimately altered the path of
politics there, in the region, and globally in ways that ought to be
familiar to discerning readers today.”

If you don’t have time to read the entire article, check out the
quote in the article from a New York Times editorial dated August 6th, 1954.

Read it at: http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18494#_edn2. A pdf
version is available.

My name is Nahal. Nahal in Farsi (the language of Iran) means a seedling, a little tree. In many ways I still feel like a little tree, young, alive, ready to poke around and grow into my full potential.

I was born and raised in Iran. I came to the US when I was 19 to finish my college education and for various reasons decided to live here. I’ve now lived longer in the US than I have in Iran and consider the US “my home” and Iran my “birth country”. I love both countries.

In all my years of living in the US and throughout all the political ups and downs between the US and Iran, I’ve never once experienced hostility or prejudice towards myself or my family. Perhaps it is because I really like all people and do my best not to have prejudice towards any one in particular. I believe that deep down inside, we are all very similar and want similar things, health, happiness, peace of mind, safety and comfort for ourselves and our loved ones.

I believe people of different cultures, backgrounds and upbringing can live side by side in harmony when we respect and appreciate both our similarities and differences.

I believe increasing compassion in the world, even one person at a time, is the key to creating peace.

An act of kindness, a smile, a wave, a helping hand, no matter how small, cracks open the door to compassion and the reward is the wonderful “feeling good inside”.

I invite you to try this. Do a good deed for someone today without any expectations, and know that you are adding to the collective compassion and moving one step closer to a peaceful world. Imagine if every person on the planet did this!

Nahal is a former Microsoft Engineer and currently an Avatar Master who lives in Seattle and teaches the Avatar Course all over the world. Look for her on MySpace or Facebook for contact

David Batty
guardian.co.uk, Friday June 13 2008

Shirin Ebadi at a media forum in Germany this month. Photograph: Felix Heyder/EPA

The Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi is not a woman easily stopped in her tracks - she has been held in jail and faced repeated death threats, but continues to speak out against the abuses of the theocratic regime. On the doorstep of the BBC’s Bush House in central London, though, an American tourist waves the Nobel peace laureate and her entourage aside, complaining loudly: “Do you mind? We’re trying to take a picture!”

It serves, perhaps, as a reminder for Ebadi - who has spent the day being treated like a VIP by the BBC World Service - of the challenge she faces in attracting western interest to her cause.

With the international community fixated on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Ebadi says there is dwindling scrutiny of human rights in her homeland, and the hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has taken advantage of this to increase repression.

“Since the world started focusing on the nuclear programme, the human rights situation in Iran has worsened every day,” says Ebadi, who won the Nobel prize in 2003.

Dozens of activists have been prosecuted and condemned to prison, the lash or both. Arrests, detention and judicial harassment are increasing, with journalists, lawyers, students and trade unionists particularly targeted.

“The morality police interfere more in people’s everyday lives,” she says. “They recently announced they would carry out inspections in private homes and companies. In Tehran there was also a plan to target hooligans on the streets, but it led to a lot of innocent young people and women being arrested.”

Ebadi, 60, has been relatively lucky. She was born in 1947 to a non-traditional Muslim family. She was treated as an equal with her brother and encouraged to go to college. In 1975, aged 23, she became Iran’s first woman judge. She lost her position after the Islamic revolution in 1979 when conservative clerics insisted that Islam prohibits women from holding such an office. She was allowed to practice law again in 1992, and since then has turned her legal skills against the Islamic republic she once supported but now opposes due to its human rights abuses.

Ebadi recently took her campaign to the mid-west United States, where she found sympathy among ordinary Americans upset by bellicose rhetoric about Iran. She is perturbed at how contestants in the US presidential race have cited their preparedness to attack Iran. In April, Hillary Clinton said she would “obliterate” the country if it attacked Israel.

“It is very concerning,” she says. “Undoubtedly a military attack on Iran would worsen human rights in the country. Look at Iraq - now the fundamentalists have a pretext for their extremism. No one talks about freedom of speech or human rights. People just want a safe shelter.

“Do you think that since the US troops arrived in Iraq that the Iraqi people have become prosperous? As a human rights activist I tell the people of the world that if you want to help people in Iran the solution is not to launch an attack.”

There is little sign that western leaders are listening. This week, George Bush once again raised the possibility of military action, warning that “all options are on the table”. A US-EU summit in Slovenia threatened new sanctions against Iran if it fails to end uranium enrichment.

Ebadi says the nuclear standoff has made the Iranian regime attractive to disaffected young people elsewhere in the Middle East whose governments are unelected.

“Disenchanted young people have turned to Iran for inspiration, a country that takes every opportunity to burn the American flag. But can the Iranian government represent a good system of government? No.”

The world needs to know that every day the lives of Iranians are “getting poorer and more impoverished” due to the regime’s internal oppression and confrontational foreign policy, she says.

“There are close to 10 million people under the poverty line. That’s one out of every seven. And that is according to official government figures, so let’s imagine the reality.

“The consequences of Iranian policies domestically should be revealed around the world, so [young people in the Middle East] understand that just opposing the US isn’t going to solve the problems they face. We’ve been saying ‘death to America’ for years but our people have been getting hungrier.”

Ebadi says that to tackle the surge in support for Iran among the young in the region, the US must stop supporting its undemocratic regimes. “What is interesting is almost all the undemocratic regimes in the Middle East – Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates – is they’re all friends of the United States,” she says.

“If the US were to stop supporting their governments they would fall immediately. So the people of those countries don’t feel good about American foreign policy and view it suspiciously.”

Ebadi was always unconvinced by the Bush administration’s view that regime change in Iraq would create a domino effect bringing democracy across the Middle East. “It was a flawed argument from the start. If a country genuinely believes in democratic reform it’s not going to wait for another country to reform before taking action.”

Her hopes hinge on obliging the regime to adhere to the international human rights conventions it has ratified. She is in London to promote a new book on the rights of refugees in Iran that sets out how international and Islamic law can be used to protect them.

Iran signed the United Nations declaration of human rights in 1975. Activists say the government is in violation of the treaty. But last year the much-criticised UN human rights council removed Iran from a list of countries that were being closely monitored.

There have been six visits to Iran by investigators since the council was established in 2006, but their recommendations have not been implemented. Ebadi says abuses have gone unchecked, and she is calling on the council to reappoint a special rapporteur to bring the regime to account.

At a conference in Geneva this week, Ebadi called on the international community to strengthen the council, as it remains a last resort for many victims.

“Unfortunately the Iranian government has not followed the recommendations of the UN rights agencies,” she says. “But the fact the recommendations are recognised by the government shows that the Iranian people do have rights and have the confidence to demand that they are respected. So though the UN reports may not have practically led to results, psychologically it has been a great boost to the morale of the Iranian people.”

Ebadi remains optimistic that reform is achievable. Her hope lies in Iran’s youthful population – almost 70% aged under 30 – which is hungry for change and prepared to fight for its freedom.

She cites the example of one of her clients, 32-year-old Maryam Hossienkhah, a journalist and member of the One Million Signatures Campaign for equal rights for Iranian women.

Hossienkhah was arrested in November for writing articles demanding respect for women’s rights under the Islamic constitution. Her bail was set at the equivalent of £75,000.

Ebadi says: “She told the judge, ‘I refuse to do that. I’m innocent but I’ll go to jail.’ As soon as she arrived in the jail, she started giving advice to the women about how to defend their cases.

“She sent a message out to her friends and colleagues that the prison library didn’t have a good book collection. So other members of the campaign brought in books and in less than 20 days the prison had a full library. Finally the judge said to the prosecutor, ‘You’ll have to get this woman out otherwise she will cause chaos!’”

Hossienkhah was released in January after her bail was reduced to just over £3,500. There are many similar cases before the courts, says Ebadi. “I’m glad to say that the more harsh women’s lives become, the more determined they are to overcome them. The will of these women is very powerful and that poses a challenge for the government.”

Shirin Ebadi’s latest book, Refugee Rights in Iran, is published by Saqi at £12.99. www.saqibooks.com

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/13/shirinebadi.iran

June 14, 2008 | 6:12 p.m. CST

COLUMBIA — Lily Tinker-Fortel clenched the passenger door armrest as her Iranian taxi weaved in and out through the congestion of cars, motorbikes and pedestrians on Valiasr Street, the longest street in the Middle East and the busiest 12 miles for Tehran’s 13 million residents.

“Imagine a busy street lined on both sides with beautiful, towering sycamores. Miles of sycamores,” Tinker-Fortel wrote in her blog on June 9, 2008, recounting her first afternoon in Tehran.

It was day one of a 12-day, 21-person civilian diplomacy trip that took the 24-year-old peace activist from Columbia to numerous Iranian historical and cultural centers of the villages Qom, Esfahan, and Abyaneh, and the city of Shiraz. Tinker-Fortel, community outreach coordinator for Mid-Missouri Peaceworks, was part of an interfaith delegation that went to Iran in May on a mission of fellowship.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest and largest interfaith organization in the United States, organized the delegation and began their Iranian program in December 2005. According to Leila Zand, director of the organization’s Iran program, the delegation sends civilian diplomats into Iran to meet Iranian civilians, government officials and religious leaders from Iran’s Muslim majority and those in the minority Armenian-Christian, Iranian-Jewish and Zoroastrain communities.

“In the Iran program the main goal is to educate Americans and Iranians,” Zand said. “Its really important to see that Iranians are just like us and its really important for Iranians to know that Americans don’t always accept their (the American) government’s policies.”

Tinker-Fortel recalls that although the 36-hour trip from Missouri to Tehran was exhausting, her adrenaline kept her wide-awake.

“We were embarking on this very exciting journey for all of us. Anytime you are in the midst of a new experience your senses are definitely alert and excited,” Tinker-Fortel said.

Tinker-Fortel believes the purpose of her trip and the concept of civilian diplomacy is to get past the political rhetoric in the lead up to war and get back to the human component of violent conflicts.

“What gets lost is that we are talking about human beings. It’s tragic that it’s lost,” Tinker-Fortel said.

Tinker-Fortel used the kids she met and saw in Iran as an example.

“A picture comes to mind of these boys and one was eating an ice cream cone,” Tinker-Fortel remembered. “They like cool cars, they read books. And they go with their moms and dads to the park. They have hopes and dreams, too.”

Tinker-Fortel has given presentations to organizations and friends in Columbia about her civilian diplomat experience in Iran as part of a campaign to educate Americans about Iran and correct misconceptions about Iranian society.

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish Peace Walk and the Shomer Shalom Institute for Jewish Non-Violence, was a fellow delegate to Iran and believes civilian diplomats can build bridges of understanding and influence their societies towards peace.

“Its part of our duties as citizens to create peace on the ground. It has to be intentional,” Gottlieb said.

Both women experienced firsthand Iranian anxiety of the possibility of war with the United States as Tinker-Fortel was confronted with the fear while exploring the Imam square of Esfahan, the second-largest public square in the world.

“I woke up early and went with a couple of other women to explore the square,” Tinker-Fortel said. “As we were shopping for scarves we were approached by three other women, one knew English and a conversation was born.”

The American women explained who they were and showed the Iranian women their peace advocate buttons. Tinker-Fortel recalled that as the conversation ended the English-speaking woman began crying and asked them to tell American people that Iranians are friendly.

“It was one of the first times I experienced the fear of an American-led or -sponsored war with Iran,” Tinker-Fortel said.

She explained that Iranians have witnessed war in recent history and have vivid memories of the Iran-Iraq war.

The Fellowship requested Tinker-Fortel join the delegation after she worked with Mid-Missouri Peaceworks to bring Stephen Kinzer, an author and lecturer, to Columbia. Jeff Stack, coordinator of the Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation cited her compassion and articulation as reasons he believed she was a good representative to Iran.

“I’m encouraged by this next generation that she seems to represent,” Stack said. “She is a person working hard to help support and make possible a more creative and constructive uplifting society.”

Long-standing political and cultural tensions between the United States and Iran have increased recently with U.S. opposition to Iranian attempts to develop a nuclear program. As recently as Thursday, President Bush repeated his willingness to include military force as a viable option to curtail Iran’s nuclear program during a meeting with European leaders in Germany, according to other media reports.

“We literally spoke to hundreds of people who expressed their hope that the U.S. would not bomb their country,” Rabbi Gottlieb said.

Tinker-Fortel’s experience in Iran has increased a sense of urgency for her to use civilian diplomacy to effect change by encouraging citizens to demand more from their elected officials.

“We have a great opportunity to reclaim the way we are represented,” Tinker-Fortel said. “I’m just another person trying to share that with others, bring it back to the people. There’s nothing to lose by trying diplomacy.”

Sister Ellen Francis from the Episcopal Order of St. Helena’s Convent in Augusta, Georgia has officially begun a weekly “fast for peace” in regards to Iran and the United States and Israel. Sister Ellen Francis is an American who has traveled the world for peace and human rights activism for many years. She had the privilege of living in Iran for ten years and since then has made many more trips there for civilian diplomatic reasons. I had the honor of going on one such trip with Sister Ellen Francis in March of this year. As one can read from my own personal blogs about the trip, it was a once in a lifetime experience that I will not soon forget. Not only did I gain tremendously as a person from the trip culturally, I believe we made amazing progress as a group in our collected goal of fostering more peace and harmony between the people of the United States and Iran.

As one can clearly see from this website and so many others, there are hundreds of thousands of people all over the world who are taking pro-active steps of action to not only assure that a few ignorant people who happen to currently work for us (think “government employees”) don’t needlessly attack the people of Iran militarily, but are also working to actually create and foster more peace and harmony between our two countries - which is at the end of the day what everyone says they want. Right?

Even the worst of them, the absolute most treacherous, murderous, and caniving monsters in the world today - (think Bush Jr. and Sr., Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Libby, Limbaugh, Rove, the Clintons, many of the current “Ayatollahs” serving in the government of Iran, et al. - for more detailed information on the history of some of these heinous names, start your research by studying the Project for a New American Century here), claim that they are “working towards peace.” The problem is that it is hard sometimes to see the logic of a few people’s methods - such as bombing other countries as just one example or sponsoring terrorist acts as another. But at the very least we can agree that “peace and harmony between our countries” is what everyone “claims” to want.

Sometimes it is more obvious when someone’s actions are more aligned with “working towards peace.” The work of groups such as The ANSWER Coalition or UFPJ or Amnesty International or Star’s Edge are all good examples of this. They actually walk the talk. Many more organizations exist and can be found on the TuneInTurnOnHelpOut.org website. Many examples can be found in groups that are even smaller all over the world… sometimes just the actions of ONE.

One such example comes in the form of a beautiful person by the name of Sister Ellen Francis who has begun a weekly “fast for peace with Iran campaign.” I am inspired, moved, and challenged by Sister Ellen Francis’ bold commitment. More information can be found on her own personal blog and in the letter she sent in this week re-printed below. If you want to join her please feel free to visit her blog and email her. And let us know here at PeaceWithIran.com if you also plan on participating.

As always, keep those articles, blog posts, lecture and event notices, activism updates, and other interesting items pouring in - and most importantly keep up the real world actions for peace. Everyday. Do something.

Sincerely,
The Raconteur

Dear Ed,
I’ve started the fast, and am feeling really good. I’ve posted a notice on my blog (ellenfrancis.blogspot.com), and also some advice about fasting. I think that the prayer is the most important part, and that people could join in just doing that, or fasting from one type of food, or partial fasting for part of the time. Maybe on another day, too — Wednesday is the best day for me since it’s our “day off” here in this convent.

Just think of all the people in the world for whom fasting isn’t an option but a WAY OF LIFE.

Isn’t it great that The Call Iran Project in Washington went so well? Carah Ong posted a notice about it on the Fellowship Of Reconciliation Iran listserve.

So let me know if you’d like to join in some way, and I’d be really happy for the publicity through the PeaceWithIran website. The more the merrier, and the more powerful we will be! I’m going to write an article for the Episcopal Peace Fellowship newsletter and maybe for our newsletter too. A few people have left comments on my blog.

Yours in Peace,
Sister Ellen Francis