{"id":36211,"date":"2013-11-11T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=36211"},"modified":"2015-05-05T22:21:12","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T21:21:12","slug":"human-rights-advocate-censor-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/11\/human-rights-advocate-censor-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Rights Advocate: Censor Them!"},"content":{"rendered":"

On November 4th<\/sup>, Iranian lawyer and the 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate [Shirin Ebadi] announced that the United States and Europe should ban Iran from using broadcast satellites<\/a>.\u00a0 Censor them, is what this \u2018human rights\u2019 advocate is suggesting.\u00a0 Shocking as this is, given Ebadi\u2019s track record, the call for censorship comes as no surprise. \u00a0\u00a0She is, after all, a former judge.<\/p>\n

During the brutal dictatorship of the Shah of Iran, Ebadi was a judge (she managed to become a \u201cjudge\u201d with an undergrad degree \u2013 without legal practice experience, simply by passing a \u2018qualification exam to become a judge<\/a>!).\u00a0 One can only surmise what the \u2018qualification exam\u2019 consisted of, however, a cursory look at the political environment of the time may shed light on the judgeship qualifications of Ebadi.<\/p>\n

Ebadi, today\u2019s \u2018human rights\u2019 activist, enjoyed the status and privileges of a judge at a time when the Shah\u2019s secret police (SAVAK) \u00a0trained by the CIA and Mossad , engaged in brutal torture. According to Amnesty International, the methods include<\/a>d\u00a0 \u201cwhipping and beating, electric shocks, extraction of teeth and nails, boiling water pumped into the rectum, heavy weights hung on the testicles, tying the prisoner to a metal table heated to a white heat, inserting a broken bottle into the anus, and rape.”\u00a0 As one of its many \u201cfriendly\u201d dictators, the US covered up the crimes with censorship.<\/p>\n

The United States did more than train torturers and keep it under wraps.\u00a0 But the US did much more for its pet dictator.\u00a0 Right up until the 1979 Iranian Revolution, \u201cthe CIA worked with SAVAK, the shah’s secret police, to destroy “antishah” elements in the Iranian student community in the United States<\/a>. The CIA and SAVAK set up a front group called the International Association of Patriotic Students (IAPS), which organized demonstrations in favor of the shah and beat up students who differed with their view of the ruler.\u201d \u00a0Ebadi\u2019s judgeship remained in tact, as did human rights violations, and the censorship of these crimes. Judge Ebadi was silent \u2013 engulfed in a \u00a0culture of abuse and censorship. The 1979 Iranian Revolution put an end to her career as a judge.\u00a0 \u00a0She was forced to practice law instead of passing judgment!<\/p>\n

After the Revolution,\u00a0 Ebadi sank into obscurity \u2013 and resurfaced in 2002.\u00a0\u00a0 She appeared in the headlines as the Founder of \u2018Defenders of Human Rights Center\u2019.\u00a0 Their website states<\/a>: \u201cDefenders of Human Rights Center (http:\/\/www.humanrights-ir.org\/english\/) was first established in Iran in 2002 at the initiative of the Nobel Peace Laureate Shiring [sic]Ebadi\u201d.\u00a0 Ebadi was given the Noble Peace prize in 2003.\u00a0 No longer a judge, Ebadi dedicated her time to defending the rights of all those opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran at the exclusion<\/i> of the rights of all Iranians and Iran.\u00a0 She was awarded a Nobel Peace prize in 2003.<\/p>\n

The Nobel gave her the necessary platform to undermine the government in Tehran – at a cost to the Iranian nation.\u00a0\u00a0 In 2010, this \u2018human rights\u2019 attorney displayed a total disregard for human life and international law as reported by Foreign Policy<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0Referring to sanctions, Ebadi \u201cinsisted\u201d that \u201cIranians will endure considerable hardship if they think the endgame is greater respect for human rights\u201d.<\/p>\n

This \u2018human rights advocate and attorney\u00a0 further opined that the United States should use VOA and Radio Farda to reach Iranians inside Iran ‘\u201dto convince them\u00a0 that the sanctions are targeted at the regime and not the ordinary Iranians\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (Perhaps she is of the opinion that had VOA broadcasted into Iraq, the lives of 500,000 children would have been spared by sanctions. )\u00a0 \u00a0However, in spite of daily broadcast into Iran, sanctions continue to take lives.\u00a0 No amount of radio wave has managed to save lives.<\/p>\n

So while Ebadi, former judge,\u00a0 \u2018human rights\u2019 advocate, recommends the violation of a bilateral agreement –\u00a0 the Algiers Accords, Point I.1 of which states: \u201cThe United States pledge that it is and from now will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran\u2019s internal affairs.\u201d ( Per Article VI of the Algiers Accords, the violated party, Iran, has the right to refer the matter to the Tribunal at Hague, the Netherlands, where the International Court of Justice will have jurisdiction) by encouraging US government broadcasts into Iran, she is calling for the censorship of Iranian broadcast .<\/p>\n

In 2010, Ebadi [wishfully] predicted the end of the Islamic Republic and a new start for her.\u00a0\u00a0 Her hopes were dashed with the election of Rohani and the popular support behind him.\u00a0 But clearly her ambition is unchecked.\u00a0 As such, one has to wonder what will be the next game plan for this \u2018human rights\u2019 activist who advocates death (sanctions) and censorship.<\/p>\n

____________________________<\/p>\n

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an independent researcher and writer with a focus on U.S. foreign policy.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On November 4th, Iranian lawyer and the 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate [Shirin Ebadi] announced that the United States and Europe should ban Iran from using broadcast satellites. Censor them, is what this \u2018human rights\u2019 advocate is suggesting. Shocking as this is, given Ebadi\u2019s track record, the call for censorship comes as no surprise. She is, after all, a former judge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nobel-laureates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}