Iran Regime Goes After US Human Rights to Cover its Bad Record
One of the more ironic acts of desperation by the Iranian regime is to sponsor a conference in Tehran on the U.S. human rights record as it pertains to police killings of African-Americans; in an attempt to cover up Iran’s abysmal human rights record.
Regime-run television gave the event wide play as it sought to focus attention on the politically hot topic in the U.S. and right on cue, the Iran lobby obliged by raising its own profile on the Black Lives Matter movement and trying to link it to the concerns of the Iranian regime.
The National Iranian American Council, a staunch defender of the Iranian regime, spotlighted a letter being circulated in Farsi aimed at building ties between the BLM movement and the perceptions of how Iran is being treated as “terrorists” in the media.
It is ironic for NIAC to be sharing this letter and proclaim solidarity with the blacks who perceive being persecuted while back in Iran, Iranian-Americans are being arrested with alarming frequency lately and the NIAC issues no protest or demand for their release.
The latest being a San Diego-man who may have been arrested because of his frequent social media postings protesting human rights abuses in Iran. While it is commendable to hope for an improvement in the relations between blacks and law enforcement in the U.S., it might have been more productive if NIAC circulated a letter in Iran calling on the mullahs to improve the treatment of Iranians by the regime’s police and paramilitary units.
It is the treatment of ordinary Iranians at the hands of regime that makes the effort to blame the U.S. for human rights abuses so extraordinarily silly, but it is on par with recent efforts to try and blame Saudi Arabia for the creation of ISIS. Next the mullahs will blame global warming on Canada in order to deflect from the snatching of its citizens by Iran.
Most troubling though is the regime’s recent spate of arrests of dual national citizens with most not even charged with any specific crime. Their abductions bring up the specter of more prisoner swaps down the road similar to what followed after the nuclear deal was agreed to with the swap of several Americans including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini.
The plight of religious minorities such as Christians, Iran has always been a precarious thing with several such as the Ba’hai being ruthlessly persecuted by the regime. One such example is a Christian woman being held and denied a medical release while she undertakes a hunger strike.
Mohabat News reported Monday that the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence has refused to grant Maryam Zargaran’s release despite signs that she is developing multiple sclerosis. The Christian woman began her second hunger strike on July 5 in protest against the treatment she has received in prison, and reports are saying that she has become very weak, with her long-term heart condition posing an increasing health risk.
Zargaran’s family were allowed to visit her in prison recently, but revealed that she refuses to receive treatment at the prison clinic because staff mistreat her there.
The Iranian Christian woman has been held inside Evin Prison’s Women’s Ward since July 15, 2013, for helping Abedini, who also spent three and a half years in prison in Iran before being released and returning to America.
Abedini has been speaking out against the persecution of Christians in Iran and against Zargaran’s treatment ever since, and on Saturday wrote on Facebook: “Today is day 20 of Nasim hunger strike and NO [response] from anyone.”
Abedini spoke before 100,000 people in Paris at the National Council of Resistance of Iran rally earlier in July, and vowed that through faith in Jesus Christ, the “resurrection of the Iranian people” is coming soon.
“We will soon see this rebellion in our country, in our hearts, and in our world, because Jesus Christ is bringing this message. The resurrection of the Iranian people shall arrive very soon,” the pastor said at the time.
But the Iranian regime’s malfeasance extends to its long-standing support for terrorism as was revealed when the Obama administration moved to slap sanctions on high-ranking Al-Qaeda officials being harbored in Iran by the regime.
This action follows similar acts targeting the Iran-al-Qaeda relationship with the Treasury and State Departments publicly accused the Iranian regime of allowing al Qaeda to operate inside Iran at least 10 times between July 2011 and August 2014.
Testifying before Congress in February 2012, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper described the relationship as a “marriage of convenience.” There is considerably more evidence of Iran’s support for al Qaeda in the collection of documents captured during the raid of Osama bin Laden’s compound on Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011.
Senior U.S. intelligence officials have told The Weekly Standard that the document collection includes letters describing the nature of the relationship between Iran and al Qaeda and specific ways in which Iran has aided al Qaeda’s network and operations.
The hypocrisy in the move to sanctions terrorists safely harbored in Iran, but not sanction Iran itself is self-evident and an example of the perverse logic the Iran lobby has sought to instill throughout the “echo chamber” of supporters of the regime.
By Laura Carnahan