Now that Condi Rice and GW Bush have mentioned Iran as "" and "", it may be a good time for us, as citizens, to start learning a little bit about this country. As a member of the "axis of evil" and a subject of conversations at the senate and presidential level, it souldn't come as much of a surprise if Iran lines up to be the next target in the war on terror.
Rice: "The goal of the administration is to have a regime in Iran that is responsive to concerns that we have about Iran's policies, which are about 180 degrees antithetical to our own interests at this point."
However, as of this writing, the US media has not devoted a lot of coverage to the Iran threat. So, it may be a good time to take a nice "pre-propiganda" look at Iran. If for no other reason, it should be interesting to see what public opinion will say about this country a year or two from now.
What is an Ayatollah?
An ayatollah is a religious scholar and clergyman of Islam. Ayatollah means "sign of god", and it is a title given to the Islamic clerics after decades of outstanding scholarship and leadership. Ayatollahs are experts on theology, jurisprudence, science, and philosophy. They write theology books and give lectures. The title is earned slowly and through the respect of the learned Islamic community.
Some ayatollahs are called "grand ayatollah". They are the most important thinkers and leaders of the religion. There are usually a very small number of grand ayatollahs. There may be a handful in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and around the Islamic world. As of this writing, currently there are 5 "grand ayatollah" in the world. These guys are like the popes of Islam in terms of respect and popularity. They carry the enormous respect of the Muslim people.
Who was the ayatollah Khomeini?
The ayatollah Khomeini was one such highly respected religious leader in Iran in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also a very vocal critic of the secular (and U.S. supported) government under the rule of the Shaw of Iran. The ayatollah was exiled for his in public criticism of the government 1964. He moved around during his exile, from turkey, to Iraq and then to France. When an anti-Shaw revolution started in Iran in 1978, ayatollah Khomeini was invited back to the country. While he didn't start the revolution, he became the leader immediately upon his return to Iran. He founded the first Islamic republic state, wherein he was the spiritual ruler and head of state. The new government structure also included an elected president, on a four-year cycle, a legislature, and a supreme court. The people’s revolution took power on April 1, 1979, which is Iran’s independence day.
Ayatollah Ali Jannati is the current supreme leader in Iran, having taken office after the Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989 of prostate cancer. The president of Iran is Seyyed Mohammad Khatami who was elected in 1997 and re-elected in 2001. Khatami is a reformist who is advocating changes in Iran rule. He is, as a result, very popular with young voters and women, whose voice calls for personal liberties previously not allowed. In Iran, everyone age 15 or over can vote, and the canadates are expressly forbidden from any form of negative advertising. However, reform has been slow. The list of eligible canadates for office has to be approved by the unelected powers, which can scratch the reform cannadates before the polls open, as they did in the many legislative district elections in 2004.
What was the Iran Hostage Crisis?
When the Islamic revolution took over power in Iran, the displaced Shaw, who had been supported by the U.S., fled. He was sick with cancer, and went to the U.S. for treatment. On November 4, 1979, with the ideological backing of Ayatollah Khomeini, a group of Iranian student protesters seized the U.S. embassy in Iran and took 66 U.S. prisoners as hostages. 13 women and African Americans were released on November 19th and 20, but the remaining 52 white U.S. men were held captive.
Jimmy Carter tried economic pressure, stopping oil imports from Iran on 11/12/79, expelling Iranians in the U.S., and seizing 8 billion dollars worth of financial assets of Iran that were active in the U.S.
Iran issued it's hostage release demands. The U.S. was to return the Shaw to Iran for trial. The U.S. was to issue an apology for it's past actions in Iran, and agree to not interfere in the future. Carter rejected the demands and instead approved "operation eagle claw", a rescue mission whose helicopters broke down in a sandstorm. One helicopter crashed, and 8 U.S. soldiers died. Their bodies were dragged through the streets of Tehran in front of worldwide television cameras. Carter looked like an idiot, and was easily defeated by Regan in the 1980 election.
While the hostages stayed put, the Shaw actually died. But, the real break for the hostages came when (our old buddy) Saddam Hussein launched an invasion on Iran in late September 1980. At that point, the frozen assets in the U.S. began to hurt Iran pretty badly. Negotiations began for the release, but not in time to save carter as a president.
On the day of Regan’s inauguration, the hostages were freed in exchange for the unfreezing of the Iranian monies, a historical anomaly to the U.S. policy of "not negotiating with terrorists". As a side note, the term "October surprise" originated in the 1980 carter Regan election. A book by Gary Slick later alleged that Regan and his friends in the Iran contra deal deliberately postponed the release of the hostages until after the election. Jimmy carters failure to solve the problem was a dark cloud on his public image.
On the day they were released, the hostages had been held for 444 days (one year, two and a half months). The U.S. has no embassy in Iran today. Iran is represented on the U.S. embassy circuit through Switzerland.
How well does Iran respect human rights?
Human rights issues are very real in Iran. the most outstanding issues are the silencing of expression and dissent, the torture of political prisoners and use of secret prisons. There is also an ongoing struggle for minority and women's rights in Iran.
The system of government, wherein the unelected religious leaders can overrule the elected legislature and president at any time, contributes to the ongoing human rights problems. in recent years, the president and the parliament have looked for reform in women’s rights, family law, prohibition of torture, and free election reform, only to have measures vetoed by the Guardian Council, a body of 12 religious jurist that have unchecked veto power over the actions of the parliament.
Iranian authorities systematically and repress contrary opinion in newspapers and journals. Reformist newspapers are shut down. The media which remains in the country self censor themselves to stay alive. Several prominent writers are known to be in prison solely for their expressions of dissent. Iranian authorities are actively targeting Internet sites which carry countering news to Iranians.
Iran has not banned the use of torture. reports indicate the use secret police, secret prisons, prolonged interrogations, solitary confinements, beatings with cables, forcing prisoners to maintain contorted positions for sustained periods, and videotaped confessions.
Many of the human rights issues surrounding women in Iran are due to the legal system in Iran, which is unfair to women in many regards. there are a number of women's rights advocacy groups in Iran in the ongoing struggle to achieve rights, but progress is slow in the face of religious hard liners and the Sharia legal system in use there.
What is Sharia law?
Iran practices a version of "Sharia" law. Sharia is the traditional Islamic code of law, originating in the Koran (the sacred text of Islam) and developed through the centuries of Islamic thought. Sharia legal systems are in place in throughout the world.
Like any religious or theological dogma, Sharia law means different things to different people. As a result, Sharia courts have different functions and rules throughout the world. There are Sharia courts in Ontario, Canada which Muslim Canadians can use the religious court's ruling as a sort of binding arbitration. Saudi Arabia and Iran maintain religious courts for all aspects of law. Many countries, such as Morocco, Sudan, and Libya maintain dual legal systems, wherein Sharia courts have jurisdiction of family, marriage, and inheritance laws, and a separate secular courts govern all other laws. Recently, some areas in Nigeria have introduced Sharia courts. These have drawn a great public controversy because they feature very harsh punishments, such as amputation of hand for theft, stoning for adultery.
Interestingly enough, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, and Turkey, the countries with the largest Muslim populations in the world, do not use Sharia courts. They have entirely secular legal systems.
Sharia law is not, by itself, a bad thing. there are women's groups in Iran and Malaysia who believe that the Koran and the teachings of Islam provide for a just treatment of women, and that an updated interpretation of Sharia could greatly expand women’s rights. On the other hand, proponents of the more fundamentalist Sharia interpretation in Nigeria point to the results in that country's crime rate. From one perspective, their point is valid. Once stoning, beatings, and killings were implemented as criminal punishments, the crime rate plummeted very quickly.
To understand how a single religious code of values may have an infinitely wide variety of variations, consider a western example: one passage in the old testament of the Christian bible prescribes capital punishment for homosexual acts, while some modern liberal Christian churches welcome homosexual participation and perform gay marriages. Both have arguments, which they claim are firmly based in scripture, yet neither agrees.
For the record, it may be appropriate to clarify a few popular legends. Female circumcision is not a part of Islamic law, and it is not, in any source i have discovered, practiced in Iran. The raping of women prisoners, a popular (and probably true) accusation against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, is not part of Islamic law. As of this writing, no such accusations are made against authorities in Iran. rape, under the Iranian version of Sharia law, is punishable by public hanging (a human rights issue of its own).
more to come on Iran.....
sources for this article:
www.wikipedia.com
jimmy carter library
"Iran election: People and policies", By Jim Muir in Tehran, BBC News 6/1/2001
human rights watch website
