A CONVERSATION WITH IRANIAN NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE SHIRIN EBADI THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2011 WASHINGTON, D.C. WELCOME: Jessica Mathews President Carnegie Endowment for International Peace MODERATOR: Karim Sadjadpour Associate, Middle East Program Carnegie Endowment for International Peace SPEAKER: Shirin Ebadi Founder Centre for the Defense of Human Rights Transcript by Federal News Service Washington, D.C.
JESSICA MATHEWS: Good afternoon. I m Jessica Mathews. I m president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It is routine, commonplace, for somebody in my position introducing a guest to say that it s an honor or a privilege to have so-and-so here. It is today an honor. Those words mean something today for me, I think for all of us. It is a real honor to welcome Shirin Ebadi back up to the Carnegie Endowment, and it is a real privilege for us to host this gathering. I think everybody here knows of her career tirelessly working for civil rights human rights in Iran, particularly on behalf of women, children, religious minorities, political prisoners, and refugees. Hers has been a career marked by extraordinary courage and tenacity. She has endured imprisonment, repeated death threats, and now exile. And she has continued her work. Her life has been and her work has been an inspiration to millions of Iranians both in Iran and in the enormous Iranian diaspora. And it remains one as Iran struggles we hope towards a rule of law and human rights. Karim Sadjadpour is going to moderate a discussion with Ms. Ebadi regarding her amazing new book, The Golden Cage. I will say that I got a copy at 10 o clock last night and I read until I couldn t keep my eyes open. Do not miss this book. And their discussion will also cover her thoughts about the effect of the current events in the Middle East on what happens in Iran. So let me step aside for Karim, but to say on behalf of all of us what an honor and a privilege it is to have our guest with us today. KARIM SADJADPOUR: Thank you so much, Jessica, and thank you all for coming today. It truly is an honor and a privilege to welcome Shirin Ebadi back to Carnegie as well as her wonderful translator, Shirin Ershadi, who is an old friend of Shirin s on the occasion of the release of her new book, which I have here. It s called The Golden Cage: Three Brothers, Three Choices, One Destiny. And afterwards Shirin will be signing books for half an hour or so. I wasn t expecting this type of book from Shirin Ebadi because it reads more like a novel than it does a human rights or political treatise. For those of you who are familiar with novels of the Afghan-American novelist Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner or A Thousand Splendid Suns I think you ll really enjoy this book. For me personally I finished it in two sittings, which is a testament to her story-telling skills, not my fast reading skills. I won t ruin the book for you, but it basically it tells the story of her friend her childhood friend Pari, and Pari s three brothers, each of whom succumb to a different utopian ideology in Iran. Pari s eldest brother Abbas became a monarchist, her second brother, Javad, became a communist and her youngest brother, Ali, became an Islamist, what we call Hezbollahi in Farsi. And really the book is a microcosm of the history of modern Iran in that these various ideologies brought to ruin the individuals in question, the three brothers. It tore apart their family and it obviously had a tragic outcome for Iran as well. So I recommend highly the book to all of you. And I did want to acknowledge the publisher of the book and the editor I believe who s here with us today Kenneth Kales, who s somewhere in the audience. [00:05:17] So what I thought I d do is have a short conversation of sorts with Shirin Ebadi, and then I look forward to opening it up to all of you. And of course in the question session we can feel free to go much broader beyond the book and focus on the situation in contemporary Iran. But I wanted to start off asking the question of kind of the
genesis of this project. As I mentioned, the book reads more like a novel in a positive way, not in the Greg Mortenson way than it does a nonfiction book. And there is a wonderful quote, the dedication in the book from the late Iranian political activist Ali Shariati, who says, If you can t eliminate injustice, at least tell everyone about it. So, I just wanted to start off by asking the question, how did you come up with the idea of the book? What motivated you to write this type of book? [00:06:17] (Note: Ms. Ebadi s remarks are delivered via translator.) SHIRIN EBADI: Reading pure history books may be difficult for some readers. People usually prefer not to read pure history. They usually prefer to look at history from the true stories of people. This is why I decided to write the history or parts of the history of the last 32 years in Iran through the story of a family. All of the events that you read about in this book are true; none of them are fiction. I have witnessed all of them. However, in order to write this story I have changed names, I have changed names of places and locations but all of the story is true. And my motivation was what I have written at the beginning of the book I really wanted to say what injustices people have suffered. By reading this book you will learn about the roots of the unhappiness of people today. Also, many of the events that take place in this book are continuing even today. For example, in 1988 a number of the communists in Iran were killed executed and they were buried in a desert outside of Tehran. Families of those who were executed usually go to the graves twice per year, once in the month of September and once in spring at the time of Nowruz, which is the Persian New Year. Every time they go there there are attacks by the police, they are beaten up, they are thrown out of that place and every time, again, a number are arrested. Even during the last Nowruz which was like approximately two months ago the same thing happened and a number were arrested there. [00:10:45] Therefore, it s not the past that I am talking about. The events are still happening exactly as I said it or told them in this book. MR. SADJADPOUR: I found the wisest, the most sensible character in the book to be your friend Pari, while, as I said, her brothers were these naïve utopianist young men who pursued ideologies that tore the family apart and led to more dictatorship in Iran. And it seems to me that today in Iran, in addition to yourself, the leaders, many of those who are at the forefront of Iran s democracy and human rights movement, are women such as, as was mentioned, yourself and Nasrin Sotoudeh and Shadi Sadr. And this doesn t seem to be the case with any other country in the Middle East. So I just wanted to ask you, how would you explain this phenomenon? What s wrong with us Iranian men (laughter) that, you know we can t stay out of trouble? [00:12:05] MS. EBADI: Thank you very much; you refer to a correct point. (Laughter.) Pari is the wisest and most logical character in this book. And she s a symbol of the women in Iran. In the protests that took place after June
of 2009, we saw how women were in the front and how many women were on the streets. And the feminist movement in Iran is the most important and strongest movement that exists. The reason for this being that the level of culture of women in Iran is very high. Over 65 percent of the university students are female. Numerous university professors are women. And women are present in all important and sensitive social positions. However, notwithstanding the high level of culture of the Iranian women, after the revolution, many bad discriminatory laws against women were passed. I will give you a few examples. [00:14:54] Pursuant to the law, the life of a woman is worth half of that of a man. This means that if I go on the street, for example, with my brother and we both get involved in an accident, either killed or injured, the compensation paid to him is twice as much as the compensation paid to me. Testimony of two women in court equals the testimony of one man. A man can marry four wives and can divorce his wife at his will; however, divorce can be very difficult for women. laws. A married woman needs the written consent of her husband to travel, and numerous other discriminatory Naturally, educated women are against these laws. This is why women of Iran are pioneers in every protest against the government. And this is why I say that democracy will be brought to Iran with the hands of strong Iranian women. MR. SADJADPOUR: A lot of the book takes place during the time of the revolution, and you write about your own opposition to the Shah, and your friend Pari also chastises you for being out in the streets during the revolution. And you also write about the fact that your daughters grew up in an Iran which was less free than the Iran you grew up in. So I wanted to ask you, when you look back of course, hindsight is 20/20 but when you look back, in hindsight, was the revolution a grave mistake or was it a painful but necessary part of Iran s political maturation? And, if the Shirin Ebadi of 2011 could go back and give advice to the Shirin Ebadi of 1978, what would you tell her? [00:17:29] MS. EBADI: The motto of the revolution was independence and freedom, and I m still pursuing that. We were promised to have the two in the Islamic Republic. I even remember Ayatollah Khomeini, before coming to Iran, said that all will be free in Iran, even communists can be active. And the first day that he came to Iran, in a cemetery that is known as Behesht-e Zahra, he said, even if our fathers and forefathers voted for the constitution that we don t like, now we will vote for whatever we like. And the same thing is what our young people say. They say our fathers voted for the Islamic Republic; we don t want to vote for it. But if our young people repeat what Khomeini said at that time they will be imprisoned and stay there for years. I m still after independence and freedom. And I still look for a government that brings these two concepts to Iran. Of course I prefer that any event that takes place in Iran will be without blood-shedding.
[00:20:00] And I hope that everything proceeds peacefully. We re not even free to elect a representative because for elections at any level, be it the city council, be it parliamentary elections or presidential elections, the competence of the candidates has to be proved or confirmed by the Guardian Council. In other words, there is a vetting process there. The members of the Guardian Council are 12. Six of them are appointed directly by the leader and six of them indirectly by him. They are not elected representatives. And whoever has the slightest criticism of the government will not be confirmed by them. Therefore, not only we didn t gain any political freedoms, but we lost the civil freedoms, personal freedoms, that we had during the shah. At least during the shah s reign, we could wear a scarf or not wear a scarf as we wished, and many other personal or small freedoms that we had. But a nation that s not free cannot have independence. We don t have any supervision over the activities of our government. For example, I want to know: Why should we help Bolivia? Or why the government of Iran uses its oil revenue to send arms to the opposition in Senegal through Nigeria? Senegal is far away from us; what interest do we have in Senegal to topple the government there? Therefore, as you can see, we have neither freedom nor independence. And I am still pursuing the two. MR. SADJADPOUR: Given the very bitter experience of the 1979 revolution, no one wants to use the word revolution any more in Iran. If I m correct, after the 2009 uprisings in Iran, even then I didn t hear people using the word revolution in Iran. No one romanticizes about the prospects of a revolution. So I wanted to ask you, do you believe the Islamic republic is capable of being reformed? Or must it be totally overhauled? In essence, are we talking about a revolution without speaking its name? MS. EBADI: The Green Movement is a democratic movement, not an ideological one. And it doesn t have the structure of a political party, where a few people sit at the top and order and others implement. Its expansion is horizontal and it works on a network basis. Mousavi and Karroubi are not leaders of the movement, but they take steps along with the movement and they strengthen it. Inside the movement, there are two mentalities, two schools of thought. Some believe that we have to throw out the constitution and have another government with a new constitution. This may be the wish of everyone, but we know that it s not easy. And we ll end up in bloodshedding because the government is not going to let go easily. However, there are others who think that we can use the same constitution but go after those articles in the constitution where rights of people have been guaranteed but never implemented. For example, the teaching of the mother tongue of different ethnic groups to their children, something which exists in the constitution but has never been enforced. Or, in the present constitution, there is the right of association and the right to peaceful demonstrations, and other rights. Therefore, once people gain some of their rights back and when no law is indefinite, then we can go and change the or reform the constitution. Both schools of thought exist in this movement. Unfortunately, up to this minute, the government has not shown any flexibility and has not taken any steps towards the people. The future will tell which school of thought will prevail and at what cost. But what most of the people of Iran and those Iranians who are outside of Iran believe is that this kind of government is not the right way and there has to be some change, and their common demand is democracy and human rights. But their strategies are different.
MR. SADJADPOUR: We had a wonderful discussion here last month with Roberto Toscano, the former Italian ambassador to Iran, who is here today, and the Iranian philosopher, Ramin Jahanbegloo about the viability of civil disobedience in Iran nonviolent resistance. And nonviolent resistance proved successful for Gandhi in India; it proved successful for Martin Luther King. But there is an argument, which I think is gaining traction within Iran, which says that nonviolent resistance is not a viable option against regimes like Nazi Germany, like Saddam Hussein s Iraq, like Gaddafi s Libya and like the Islamic Republic. And so I wanted to pose that question to you: Is nonviolent resistance, from your vantage point civil disobedience a viable option against the Islamic Republic? MS. EBADI: Unfortunately, it has not worked until today. The government has gotten more brutal day by day. And the government that uses violence will become weaker and weaker every day. Each person who is put in prison or killed because of expressing his opinion has at least 10 members of his family or friends who will become against the government. Governments that do not listen to their people and only resort to repression are certainly going to fall down. We saw that in Islamic countries: Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak and other countries that are rising up. This is the fate of governments which want to resort to violence. MR. SADJADPOUR: There was an incredible statistic I saw just recently that, according to some estimates, 14,000 political prisoners have been killed in Iran since the 1979 revolution 14,000. So I wanted to pose the question that if, you know, one day, a democratic government comes to be in Iran, whether five years from now or 25 years from now, how should senior officials in the Islamic Republic be dealt with, especially those who are implicated in widespread human rights abuses? Do you advocate a truth and reconciliation committee? Who should be prosecuted? Khomeini? Ahmadinejad? Some would even argue that Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who, as you said, is the nominal leader of the opposition, is implicated in human rights abuses himself because he was prime minister when some of the massacres of the 80s took place. So, you know, how would you deal with that there? MS. EBADI: One of the questions that is always asked is whether peace is more important, or justice. For example, in South Africa after the blacks came into power, different truth commissions were formed and people were questioned, those who had been in the government before, and they were heard, and then they requested to be forgiven and they were forgiven. But then Nelson Mandela went to the prison that he had spent years in and reinstated the president of the prison, who had been there when he was there. And this amnesty or forgiveness resulted in the fact that South Africa did not face a civil war and continued life. But in some other places, it didn t work the same solution. But in some other African countries where the tribes fought, the tribe that won forgave the others who had committed atrocities. However, after a few years, they came to power again and started the killings again. Therefore, I think whether we choose national conciliation and forgiveness over pursuing those who have committed atrocities depends on different conditions of time and place. And one other thing is the issue of timely justice. For example, when the people of Chile won, Pinochet was there but he became a senator after that they forgave him. They didn t bring him to justice. But when the people gained power and they knew that there was no risk of a coup, then they went to court to bring justice to Pinochet.
Therefore, regarding Iran, I think we have to wait and see what the conditions call for. Then we can decide what s best for Iran. MR. SADJADPOUR: Right. Well, we have about 30 minutes left so I wanted to hand it over to all of you now. I ll bunch together a few questions at once, and if you can be as concise as possible and please introduce yourself. Jay Solomon. Wait for the microphone. Q: Hi. This is Jay Solomon from The Wall Street Journal. I have a question regarding some of the policies in Washington and how they might impact the Green Movement. There is intense pressure on Capitol Hill for the U.S. to delist the MeK as a terrorist organization and potentially fund them. I m interested in your view, what impact this might have on the Green Movement. And could it possibly weaken it? Thank you. MR. SADJADPOUR: Thank you. More questions? Barbara Slavin. Q: Barbara Slavin from the Atlantic Council. Mrs. Ebadi, it s very good to see you again. I wanted to ask a broader question about U.S. policy, how you would evaluate what Obama has done whether the multiple sanctions that are being placed on Iran are actually any use to the Green Movement, or whether they re stiffening the spine of the government, making people support the government more. And I m speaking in particular about sanctions like the ones that make it very difficult for people to use banks to do any kind of trade or transactions with Iran even if they don t have anything to do with weapons or the nuclear program. Thank you. [00:39:58] Q: Doug Fox, independent consultant. To broaden the question about the MeK a little bit more, would U.S. support for opposition groups in Iran be a help to that opposition? And my second question is, would you you say in your book you ve changed names and places. Would you create a key for the book so that in 20 years or 50 years or whenever it would be safe that historians would be able to learn the actual places and individuals you reference? MR. SADJADPOUR: Interesting question. MS. EBADI: Regarding the first question and the MeK, I think that there has to be a court to hear all of the evidence against them and then determine whether they are a terrorist organization or not. I am not a judge and I prefer not to respond to this question. But what I can say is, the attack on the Ashraf base, where 32 people were killed, is not a humanistic approach. And specifically with regard to the time that this attack happened this happened exactly when the Mujaheddin stated that in a city of Iran named Karaj there is a corporation called Tabel working on nuclear issues. Thirty-six hours later they were attacked. And this is very argumentative. Therefore I expressly condemn the attack on the Ashraf base. Those who live in the Ashraf base have to be supported politically as refugees. And Iraq cannot return them to Iran because their lives will be in danger in Iran. [00:43:58]
Regarding the economic sanctions in America as an attorney, I want to ask you: why use the word sanctions? Countries have the right to come up with laws regarding trade in their own country. For example, the sale of cheese in French supermarkets there are a number of laws maybe 15 to 16 laws regarding this. And in order to support its own agriculture and products, France does encourage or limits imports of cheese. Or as some countries that produce coffee if there is a surplus they may even trash parts of it. Can you say that that person who has thrown out part of their crop products of coffee or whatever is sanctioning you? What has America done? America has limited the work of corporations within its borders. It has said that countries that have over a million transactions with Iran will not be able to continue their work here in America. Legally, this is not a sanction. This is regulating trade in America. We may not like it, but it s not sanctions. Now, this depends on big corporations; they have the right to choose whether they want to work in Iran or America. Therefore, as a defender of human rights I cannot speak in this regard; it s the corporations that have to determine what to do. [00:47:10] Then the other question was regarding a master key regarding the book to find out who the characters really were and what happened when. I have to say that defenders of human rights are active, very active, and they have collected evidence of violations of human rights within the last 32 years. And if one day we want to make a documentary, we don t even need this book there are numerous pieces of evidence there. This book is for you to read and understand what happened. MR. SADJADPOUR: Thank you. Elise Labott in the back. Q: (In foreign language.) Salaam alaikum. I was wondering if you could talk you mentioned a little bit about Egypt and Tunisia and some of these other revolutions going on, but it seemed as if Iran was really on the cutting edge of that and unfortunately it wasn t able to go all the way. But it seems that it kind of set the stage for some of these other revolutions as well because they re although the main issue of the protest was the election, certainly there s a lot of frustration in the region. And I was wondering if you think that there could be another wave in Iran that might be able to take advantage of this so-called Arab Spring or do you think that the culture of fear in Iran is just too great to go against the security forces and the regime? Thank you. MR. SADJADPOUR: In the front please. Q: Yes, Mike Pevzner, U.S. Senate staff. Mrs. Abadi, the Iranian government says that its pursuit of nuclear technology is solely devoted to peaceful purposes and has framed the issue as a matter of pride for the Iranian nation. Iranian people are very proud and have a long history. If the nuclear question is framed as an issue of pride for the Iranian people, is there ever a chance that the government will back down and conform with international demands? Thank you. [00:49:58] MR. SADJADPOUR: In the front.
Q: Nagor Mortaza (ph), VOA Persia. President Obama has recently just given the strongest message as far as standing with the people of Iran and as far as helping the people in the Green Movement and everything. And Secretary Clinton has spoken of I don t know, examples such as Internet freedom and different ways of the U.S. government being able to somehow support the Green Movement on the ground. What is your take on this? What do you think are effective methods that they can take to pursue this? [00:51:22] MS. EBADI: What is the reason that people of Tunisia and Egypt were able to get rid of their dictators and the people of Iran could not? In Tunisia and Egypt the military announced their impartiality and said that they were not going to kill their co-patriots. But in Iran, the government is in the hands of the military; the Revolutionary Guards are the ones who have the economy in their hands, who have security in their hands, and they are the ones who repress the people. But it is not going to last forever. Iran is like fire under ashes. The claim that nuclear energy is the national pride of the Iranians is not true at all, and I don t accept it. It s the propaganda of the Ahmadinejad government. The people of Iran have so many problems in their daily life they can t even pay their gas bills. They don t have time to think about stuff like that. On top of the fact that they know how the sanctions and also the insisting on the enrichment of uranium has made their situation worse. However, pursuant to the decision of the government, talking about the nuclear issue is passing the red line and the press in Iran do not even have the right to do that. People of Iran do not want another Fukushima. Unfortunately Iran is on earthquake faults. There s a lot of sun in Iran, the wind blows in the north of Iran, but we haven t invested in solar or wind energies. You can rest assured that nuclear energy is not a national pride of the Iranians. Now, regarding the fact that whether they would stop enrichment or not, up to now they haven t. I see the Nowruz message of Obama very positively. Regarding the Internet, I have to tell you that, at the present time, the Internet is controlled by the government. So, if they wish, they can reduce the speed; if they wish, they can stop it; if they wish, they can listen to what s being said on the Internet and pursue that. Therefore, the most important thing for the people of Iran is access to a nongovernmental Internet so that the government cannot control it or stop it at any time that it wishes. And I have to say that there are three satellites in the Middle East area that, if they want to work with the Iranians, they could do that. They can serve the Iranian society. [00:57:45] After trade was limited with Iran, some exemptions were passed. For example, the Internet or anything that would help with freedom of expression. The law is passed, but it hasn t been enforced yet. And I hope that the law will be enforced soon so that the people in Iran can have access to nongovernmental Internet. And, also in the news, I have heard that in Iran, they want to go after halal or Islamic Internet. (Laughter.) Up to now I always thought that halal would only refer to meat; I didn t know that the Internet would be subject to that as well. MR. SADJADPOUR: I ll take a last round of questions. There was a gentlemen in the way back with the red sweater, who had his hand up. Q: Question from Hamid Wafaa (ph), Middle East Broadcast Network. Recently there had been some diplomatic overtures between Egypt after the revolution and the Iranian regime. I really wonder if you can give us your take about that. Thank you.
MR. SADJADPOUR: Thank you. In the front also, please. Q: Hi, Hattie Babbitt with the National Democratic Institute. I wanted to follow up on a question with regard to women in the Islamic world. You mentioned that women make up 65 percent of the university population in Iran. We know that Iran has a very successful family planning program, and I wonder how it is that you would explain the difference between the Iranian experience and most of the rest of the Islamic world in terms of the participation of women. MR. SADJADPOUR: Thank you. We ll have one last question. Q: Lydan Thackery, USAID. My question is: if you had a recommendation to President Obama or the U.S. government on how to engage diplomatically, what would it be? [01:00:43] MS. EBADI: The political relations of Iran and Egypt will resume after 30 years in the near future, and I don t see any problem with that. Our governments should have political and trade relations with each other. The most important thing is for one country not to become the puppet of another by being influenced by that other country like the relations of Bashar al-assad with Iran. I don t think that this will happen in Egypt due to four reasons. They re Sunnis and we are Shias, and we don t have immediate common interests. Egypt considers itself as the big brother of the Islamic countries and countries in that region, and Iran of course claims that it is the leader of all of the Islamic world. (Laughter.) And unfortunately, racism or racial tensions exist both in the government of Iran and on the other side. Therefore, there will be trade and political relations, but they will not become a puppet or doll of Iran. And Egypt will move on the basis of its own interests. The feminist movement in Iran is the strongest movement in all of the Middle East. And women of Iran are in contact with women in other Islamic countries through their networks. And some of the women activists who have written books, their books have been translated into the languages spoken in other countries, like Nawal Saadawi. At any rate, the contact exists, and what Iranian women are doing, they re warning the women in these countries to be vigilant. The situation should get better for them, not worse. And now, regarding a recommendation to Obama: I usually don t deal with politicians, so I don t have a recommendation for him. (Laughter.) The only thing that I can say is: don t threaten Iran. Iranians don t like being threatened. And fortunately, he has not committed that mistake yet. MR. SADJADPOUR: We re unfortunately out of time, but I wanted to again thank Shirin Ebadi, who, in my opinion and the opinion of many Iranians, is truly a national treasure. I m always reminded of an anecdote from my childhood. When I was very small, I was always the smallest kid in the class before I had a growth spurt. And my mother used to tell me, to make me feel better, that dynamite comes in small packages. (Laughter.) Whenever I think about Shirin Ebadi, I always think that dynamite comes in small packages. I encourage all of you to purchase a signed copy of the book. I think you will find it a gripping read. You won t be able to put it down. As we say in the Middle East, we make you good price. (Laughter.) And again, thank you to Shirin Ebadi, and thanks to all of you. (END)