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| Authors: | Shirin Ebadi |
|---|---|
| Juju Chang |
June 7, 2004
Council on Foreign Relations
Speaker: Shirin Ebadi, Iranian human rights activist and Nobel peace prize laureate of 2003
Moderator: Juju Chang, correspondent, ABC News “20/20”
Council on Foreign Relations
New York, New York
June 7, 2004
(Note: the following is a translation of Shirin Ebadi’s remarks, which were delivered in Farsi. The question-and-answer session that followed her remarks was off the record.)
SHIRIN EBADI: [Applause.] I greet my friends, my Iranian friends and my American friends who are fond of Iranian affairs. In the beginning of my talk I have to say that I am a defense attorney who has spent her lifetime in the protection of human rights, defending human rights. Having this in mind, I am not a career politician and I am not a professor of political sciences. What I say is in the framework of human rights and has always been like that.
Human rights, unfortunately, in Iran, and also in the Middle East, is a subject that is relatively new, new from the point of view that the fundamental culture in the civic society in Europe and the civic society in the United States does not exist in that form in Iran, and it's much weaker.
The first NGO [nongovernmental organization] of human rights in Iran was in the year 1355 [according to the Islamic calendar], which was approximately 1976, two years before the Iranian revolution. Therefore, you see that the history of the beginning of activities concerning human rights in Iraq is about 27 years old, which, compared with Europe and compared with your country, is much younger. This NGO was started by a few people, founded by a few people who believed in human rights. Two years before the revolution, they had a lot of very good activities and cooperated with international organizations such as Amnesty International. Also, after the revolution, this institution performed a lot— had a lot of very useful activities. But unfortunately, at the beginning of the revolution, the situation was such that the possibility for any activity on human rights didn't exist in Iran. For this reason, the first human rights NGO that was established in Iran could not achieve anything in reality. A couple of its members were sent to jail, some were forced to exile outside of Iran, and the rest were forced to silence.
One of the founders of this NGO, who is also a professor of law, and in spreading the theory of human rights in Iran the Iranian lawyers are indebted to him. Fortunately, that person is in this gathering among you, and he is Dr. [Abdul Karim] Lahiji, who was the first founder of the human rights NGO in Iran [Iranian Association for the Defense of Human Rights]. [Applause.]
At the beginning of the revolution, whenever right-wing newspapers wished to curse me, they used to call me a feminist. They called me a defender of human rights. And at that time, words like liberal was a pejorative word. But fortunately, because of the fights of people, gradually human rights in Iran established itself in our country to the point that now defending human rights, protecting human rights, has gained a social respect and value. And many people consider themselves protectors of human rights, although maybe they deeply do not believe in human rights.
But for me, when I look back for the past, it is a positive step; in other words, the situation of human rights in Iran of today compared with 24 or 25 years ago is much better.
But this does not mean that we in Iran from the point of view of human rights have no problems. Yes, we do have problems. Iran in the year 1354— that would be 1975— joined the international civil rights and international socioeconomic rights and guaranteed to respect and observe them. The government of Iraq joined the [United Nations] Convention of Children's Rights. But in spite of these undertakings, these international undertakings, we have certain laws which break human rights in a very evident way.
Sexism is one example. In our laws, the testimony of two women is equal to the testimony of one man in courts. Having several wives— polygamy— is accepted by law. A man without any valid, justifiable excuse can divorce his wife, but to get a divorce for a woman is very difficult and very limited in scope— and many similar laws.
We also have these differences in religion. Freedom of speech is not complete, because according to law, when you want to publish a book, first you have to receive permission from the ministry of culture and Islamic information and then you can print the book. And many times there are books that simply don't receive such permission, or the author is forced to change some portions of the book. Even more painful is that sometimes the courts don't pay attention to the permission that has already been given and a book that has been published with the permission and authorization of the government— then the author, the publisher are being prosecuted.
According to an amendment in the press law, criticizing the Constitution is forbidden. And I, as a professor of law, I ask myself this question: “If I'm supposed to teach the Constitution, what should I do with this law?”
The important issue is the relationship between law and culture in a society. The laws have to be set and developed, established in accordance with cultures. Iran is— has a nation, civilization. Sixty-three percent of the students in our universities are female. The people of Iran deeply believe in democracy, and these laws are not suitable for the society in Iran. For this reason, the feminist movement in Iran has gathered a lot of depth and breadth. And again for this reason, defending human rights in Iran of today has increased.
After the first true human rights NGO was established in Iran— I'm sorry, was stopped from operation in Iran and was taken outside of the country, fortunately, we were able to establish the first true human rights NGO in Iran after the revolution. The name of this NGO is the Society for the Defenders of Human Rights. It was established because, in Iran, defending political prisoners and ideological prisoners was a very difficult task, and the government looked with suspicion at attorneys who accepted such cases and defended such cases, and there would be troubles for such attorneys. Almost all of these attorneys at one time or another went to jail, including myself. And right now, one of my colleagues, Dr. Nasser Zarafshan [lawyer representing children of Iranian political activists killed in 1998] who is also my client, he's in jail.
Attorneys who defend political and ideological prisoners are endangered themselves. For their sake, we got together and we thought that we needed an organization. The Society for the Defenders of Human Rights was established for this purpose. In this society, we do three main tasks. First, defending— free defense for ideological and political prisoners. Second, providing assistance and support to the families of such prisoners. And three, taking a position concerning violations of human rights in Iran.
I'm sure you have noticed that several times I repeated that the first true— I mentioned the first true human rights NGO in Iran that is active in human rights, and what I mean is that we're not related to any government organization, we're not paid by the government, we don't receive any financial support, not from the government and not from anyone else. We are a group of attorneys who, unfortunately, all of us in the Islamic Republic, have gone to prison. But this imprisonment has not caused any feeling of vengeance in us. We are not looking at the issues with vengeance. We have tried to keep our own independence and neutrality. If we talk about difficulties and problems, similarly, if we see anything good, we talk about that, too. I briefly talked about discrepancies, the fault in Iranian laws, and my neutrality requires me, if there is any advancement of the laws, to mention that as well.
About three months ago, the women in Iran achieved great advances. The law for custody was changed. In accordance with a previous law, after any divorce the custody of children, until the age of 2 for boys and up to the age of 7 for girls, was with the mother; after that the children were usually taken and custody would be given to the father. But in accordance with the new law, after divorce, boys and girls until the age of 7 will have to remain with their mothers, with the father paying for their support. And after that, if the father and mother do not agree, do not mutually agree about who gets custody, then the courts, with due regard for the interests of the children, will determine who will have custody and what is in the interests of the child. Therefore, you see, that although we have problems and faults, big outstanding faults in the laws— we also have had victories.
The people of Iran want more acceleration in legal reform and they hope that one day the government of Iran will respect all its international obligations concerning human rights. I thank you for the attention you've had to my words and I finish my remarks here. And I will be available to answer any questions you might have.
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