Democracy and Human Rights in Iran: A Conference in Honor of Siamak Pourzand

Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Mehrangiz Kar, International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran’s Omid Memarian, and the former Italian ambassador to Iran, Roberto Toscano, examined the relationship between culture and human rights in Iran. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Haleh Esfandiari moderated the discussion.

Art and Authoritarianism

• Censorship in Iran: Freedom of expression is generally necessary for the production of art, placing art and creativity in direct opposition to ideological censorship, Kar argued. In Iran, censorship has forced Iranian artists to be very creative. Iranian artists have shown that, if cleverly done, art can be sufficiently powerful to break the silence around particular social issues, Kar added.


• Female Artists: There are many female Iranian artists that who have played an important role as film and theater directors, actresses, designers, authors, poets and in other fields of art and have expressed their objection to anti-women policies of the Islamic Republic.

Changes in Iranian Civil Society

Memarian discussed how Iranian civil society is using diverse methods to expand public discourse and challenge the government.

• Taboo Subjects: One new trend in Iranian civil society is a greater willingness to address taboo subjects, such as the Baha’i faith and homosexuality, particularly through the discourse of human rights, Memarian said.


• Baha’is: The issue of Baha’i rights has gained prominence in Iran because of Nobel Prize-winning lawyer Shirin Ebadi’s defense of Baha’i leaders, in addition to student activism around the issue.


• Homosexuality: Although the issue of gay rights is still viewed negatively in Iran, the government now at least acknowledges the existence of homosexuals in Iran.


• Letter-writing Campaigns: Memarian suggested that there has been a change in the way civil society advocates for issues. In particular, there is an increased use of letter-writing campaigns, including love letters to prisoners. These letter-writing campaigns challenge the dominant government narrative that men and women should not publicly express feelings for each other, while also humanizing the struggles of prisoners of conscience, Memarian explained. 

Iranian Culture

• Cultural Rights: While discussions of human rights too often focus on political rights, cultural rights are also important and deserve attention, Toscano said. People have the right to access culture as well as create it, he argued.


• Paradox of the Iranian Regime: The paradox facing the Iranian regime is that Iran’s culture is so strong that it cannot be ignored by the regime, but the regime also feels threatened by it and seeks to appropriate it for its own ends. Often this means that the regime celebrates Iran’s cultural products abroad, but prevents its domestic population from enjoying them, Toscano explained.


• Traditional Culture: The panelists discussed the relationship between traditional Iranian culture and human rights.


• A Potential Source of Paralysis: Toscano stated that while the past is important, traditional culture cannot be allowed to paralyze the production of new culture.


• Constantly Changing: Traditional culture is not necessarily an obstacle to the production of new culture, Memarian asserted, because Iran’s culture is changing as a result of generational shifts and new communication technologies.
   
• Expatriate Influence: Kar added that Iranian Muslims outside of Iran also supported changes to Iranian culture by vocally supporting Baha’i rights within Iran.

U.S. State Department’s Deputy Director of the Office of Iranian Affairs Henry Wooster, Iranian journalist and cartoonist Nikahang Kowsar, and founder of the news site Balatarin Mehdi Yahyanejad examined the state of media and information technology in Iran. Brookings Institution’s Suzanne Maloney moderated the discussion. 

Internet as a Threat to the Regime

The Iranian government sees the internet as a potentially destabilizing force, Yahyanejad asserted. As a result, it has taken steps to improve its control over the internet:

• Shifting Internet Censorship: The government adjusts the level of censorship depending on the current political situation, Yahyanejad explained.
   
• Surveillance: The government monitors the text messages and unencrypted web traffic of activists. For example, Yahoo email is particularly vulnerable to surveillance.
   
• Hacking: The Iranian government has become fairly sophisticated in its ability to hack into computers and email accounts of activists.
   
• Content Production: The government increases the production of content sympathetic to the regime and employs cyber officers to leave web comments that support the regime and attack dissidents.
  
  
• National Internet: The government has also proposed creating a national, or ‘halal,’ internet, which aims to isolate international and national communications by separating external and internal web traffic, Yahyanejad said. This would facilitate increased surveillance.

Forms of Censorship

According to Kowsar, censorship in Iran is not only performed by the regime. He identified other forms of censorship, such as self-censorship and censorship by reformist news outlets. Kowsar pointed out that criticism of reformists is taboo in some opposition circles. He himself has been labeled “pro-regime” when he has expressed criticism of reformists.

Journalists in Iran

• Independence of Journalists: Journalists should be loyal to the citizens, but journalists in Iran are frequently loyal to party leaders or the government. Too often, this means that instead of being independent and verifying facts, journalist write stories they know will appeal to their audience or political faction, Kowsar added.
   
• Future of Journalism in Iran: Iranians are tired of the official state channels, newspapers, and political websites, Kowsar said. He called on Iranian journalists to start presenting all sides of a story in their reporting. Many news websites, Kowsar added, lack accountability, which is a very important dimension of responsible journalism.

Role of the U.S. Government

Wooster highlighted the steps that the United States is taking to use media and information technologies to connect with people in Iran and break the “electronic curtain” around Iran.

• Alan Eyre: The appointment of Alan Eyre as the official spokesperson has helped the United States to have a voice in Iran. This may become a permanent position.
   
• Ahmed Shaheed: The United States strongly supported the appointment of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, who helps to maintain international attention on human rights issues in Iran.
   
• Civil Society: The United States is also works with Iranian civil society activists both within and without the country. 
   
• U.S. Virtual Embassy: In December 2011, the United States launched its virtual embassy for Iranian citizens, which aims to provide a website that covers all information on U.S. policy toward Iran.
   
• Moving Beyond the Internet: The United States is aware that most Iranians get their news from the official state media and, accordingly, is using tools to circumvent satellite jamming and censorship and move beyond the internet.
   

Former Tehran-based New York Times correspondent Nazila Fathi, Iranian musician Arash Sobhani, and Iranian author Maziar Bahari examined the interaction between culture and the democratic movement in Iran. Carnegie’s Karim Sadjadpour moderated the discussion.  

Women as Political Leaders

The panelists discussed whether Iran was ready for female political leadership.

• In Transition: Fathi said that Iran is a society in transition and while the country may not be ready for female political leadership yet, Iranian women have remained very active over the past thirty years.
   
• Ready: Iran is ready, Sobhani argued, pointing to Iranians’ desire to see Shirin Ebadi take a more prominent role in politics following her acceptance of a Nobel Peace Prize.
   
• Conservative Women: Although Ayatollah Khomeini’s political movement began when he asked the shah to take the right to vote away from women, one of the revolution’s unintended consequences was to facilitate an increased presence of conservative women in public space. The women, in turn, became more educated and more active in society, Bahari stated, and the government has sought to appropriate the issue of women’s role in society for its own purposes.

Islam and Iranian Society

• More Private: Bahari said that people in Iran remain religious, but, at the same time, religion is becoming a more personal matter. He added that a post-Islamic Republic Iran would have religion but in the private sphere.
   
• Cultural Tool: Sobhani argued that the regime uses Islam as a cultural tool.
   
• Glorification of Religion: Fathi said that while religion is a key component of life in Iran, the glorification of religion, as it is presented in discussions of Iran’s piety, is neither an honest portrayal nor exclusive to Iran.

Arab Spring in Iran?

• Different Context: The demographic situations in Iran and the Arab countries are very different, since Iran’s oil resources ameliorate some of the socio-economic challenges in the country, Fathi said. She added that there are also cultural and security-related factors that are different as well, such as Iranians’ fear of instability and the Iranian government’s security forces, which are trained to break up street protests.
• Oil Money: The Ahmadinejad government has used oil money to silence poorer citizens, but if those policies come to an end, there will be greater pressure for change, Sobhani added.
   
• Cultural and Security-related Factors: Bahari stated that there are several cultural and security-related factors that distinguish the Iranian regime from vulnerable Arab regimes, such as Iranians’ trepidation for sudden change and Ayatollah Khamenei’s reputation for a lack of corruption, which gives him more legitimacy than some Arab leaders and produces a subset of the population deeply loyal to him.

Authoritarianism: Cultural or Political?

Sadjadpour pointed out that many Iranians speak admiringly about the leadership of modernizing autocrat Reza Shah. The panelists identified explanations for this idealized view of the Shah.

• Deliverables: Sobhani pointed to the infrastructure projects undertaken by the Shah, as well as the social freedoms he granted.
   
• Security: The legacy of Reza Shah is positive because of the sense of stability and security associated with his rule, Bahari added.
   
• Social Freedoms: Fathi agreed that there is nostalgia in Iran for Reza Shah because of the social freedoms associated with the Pahlavi era, but argued that Iranians do recognize that Reza Shah was a dictator who built no foundations for democracy in the country.

Role of the United States

The panelists agreed that one of the primary ways that the United States can support democratic change in Iran is to invest in communication.

• Invest and Reform: Bahari called on the United States to invest in the free flow of information, such as satellite internet technology, and to reform both the management and content of the Voice of America Persian channel.
   
• Lifting Sanctions: Lifting some of the U.S. sanctions on Iran would support communication in the country, Fathi argued, because some of them impede Iranians’ ability to buy Skype credit or access satellites.