Submitted to a Candid World

Afraid of a woman

On December 21, 2008, Iranian police stormed Shirin Ebadi’s home-office, shutting down her Center for the Defense of Human Rights. On December 29 police confiscated client files and computer hard-drives with the lame justification that the center owes taxes (though Ebadi has never earned income from the Center in 15 years).

On January 1, 2009, a mob of young men descended on Ebadi’s home, vandalizing the property, calling for her death, and being watched passively by Iranian police whom Ebadi had frantically called, fearing for her life. The mob’s justification for the riot? Ebadi hadn’t been forceful enough in her condemnation of Israel’s recent military action in Gaza.

Of course, there is nothing Ebadi could have said or done that would have stopped the deluge of harassment. The mullahs who control the Iranian government have made terrorizing Ebadi priority number one.

And why should those big, powerful men be so threatened by one middle-aged woman that they have to resort to hired mobs and obvious abuse of police authority in an attempt to subjugate her and end her lifelong work for justice?

As if it were not obvious enough, the answer below the jump …

The answer is in the question. It is because Ebadi works effectively and tirelessly to expose the cruelty and injustice of Iranian virtue laws and punishments, including the public executions of minors by, among other means, hanging or stoning. There is a quiet revolution taking place in Iran, and the clerics who have controlled the government for nearly 30 years are desperately trying to retain power over a population that is highly educated, one of the youngest globally, and increasingly connected to outside culture, including that of the infidel West. Dominated by youth, today’s Iranians do not have first-hand knowledge of the corruption and cruelty of the Shah’s reign, theoretically ended by the Revolution. They, however, do have first-hand knowledge of the corruption and cruelty of the theocracy in which they live. The mullahs have made themselves grossly wealthy on the backs of Iran’s citizens, and for years there has been dissatisfaction from the public who have to support this righteous, non-working, non-productive class.

Coupled with demographics that do not favor the survival of their absolute authority, the mullahs are having a hard time accepting the political and social capital Ebadi enjoys internationally. In late November 2008, independent U.N. experts testified specifically on Iran’s dismal human rights record, especially concerning women and children, the focus of Ebadi’s work. Her work is widely admired, and she apparently has a direct line to Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, who personally referenced a recent report Ebadi’s group submitted after his speech in Geneva to the U.N. Human Rights Council [HRC] on December 13, 2008. Ban’s speech noted that while the HRC is important, its mandate has been lost in the “partisan posturing and regional divides” that ultimately render its authority moot.

From the outside, it seems the best answer to correct the ills of the Iranian government would be to end the theocracy and replace it with a true democracy, but that is only half the story. Michael Ross, a political science professor at UCLA, researches the connection between natural resources and poltical development. In February 2008, Ross published a paper contending there is not an inherent quality to Islam that quashes human rights (namely those of women) but rather something inherent in non-diversified oil economies that facilitates dictatorial, patriarchal rule. While Iran performs better than, say, Saudi Arabia on matters such as female suffrage, labor, and politcal representation, greater economic diversification and entry of women into non-traded labor sectors are needed to further improve women’s rights in the country. Ross points out that not all oil-producing countries stifle women’s rights, but these exceptions are based on pre-exisiting conditions (like industrialization) that tempered the effects of oil on social structure.

Iran’s presidential election is coming up in June, and the mullahs are cracking down on activists, sending the clear message they want their puppet, Ahmadinejad, re-elected. Ebadi was a target regardless of her cachet with the U.N., but thankfully her international profile ensures attacks on her and her group do not go without worldwide notice.