<html>
<body>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#C04D40"><br>
</font><font size=4>
<a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal190706.html">
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal190706.html</a><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#C04D40">Iranian
Anti-Censorship Crusader Accepts Censorship at Amnesty
International</font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238"> <br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#4E5F4C">by Rostam
Pourzal<br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">At a
press conference today, journalist Akbar Ganji had just finished
vilifying the "intolerant culture" of non-Europeans when he
failed to intervene against Western censorship happening right before his
eyes. He is touring the United States to, in his words, raise
awareness about government abuses in Iran, including his six-year
imprisonment that ended last March. The other constant theme of his
campaign has been the glorification of Western
"achievements." For his "courage," he has
received numerous press freedom awards from European, Canadian, and
American intellectual and media associations.<br><br>
Ganji was the attraction at the posh Washington office of Amnesty
International today, where several awe-struck staffers joined a dozen
admiring reporters and Iranian backers of Ganji around a conference
table. No sooner had I placed copies of
</font><a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal190706.html#_edn1">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>this open
letter</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238"> addressed to
him on the table at the conclusion of the press conference than the same
were snatched up by an AI enforcer, who told me I needed prior permission
to have my freedom of expression. Apparently the AI careerist was
alarmed by doubts I had raised earlier in the session about Ganji's
tour. After all, if inconsistencies in the stories told in
Amnesty's fundraising were to become public, could budget cuts and staff
layoffs be far behind?<br><br>
The staffer began to show me (registered as a reporter) the door but
relented when I informed him that I was an AI member. I reminded
him that, if expressing diverse opinions at AI required official
approval, we should not be criticizing Iran's theocracy for
censorship. But he would not let the reporters see my
letter.<br><br>
Ganji looked on but chose not to ask me for a copy of the letter or ask
his AI hosts to respect my freedom of expression. Presumably, human
rights are so safe in a Western "democracy" that he did not
trust his eyes as he witnessed AI's censorship! When he returns to
Iran, of course he will tell tall tales of total press freedom in
America. But he will not mention that no reporter at today's press
conference defended my unorthodox take on Ganji. His Iranian
cohorts will no doubt agree that the consensus of corporate careerists is
"democracy."<br>
Ganji has risen to mythic stature in the eyes of elitist Iranian
"pro-democracy" activists and Western seekers of "moderate
Muslims" because six years in an Iranian prison have not dimmed his
enthusiasm for neo-liberal policies. Associated Press quoted him
the other day as advocating the privatization of Middle East's oil
resources:
</font>
<a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4050823.html">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>"Ganji
said that, until oil revenues are wrested from state hands, there will be
virtually no democratic nations in the Middle East."</a><br><br>
</b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">In
other words, the "human rights activist" dreams of a day when
the nationalization of Iranian oil, for which Prime Minister
</font><a href="http://www.mossadegh.com/">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>Mohammad
Mosaddegh</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238"> was
</font><a href="http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>overthrown
in 1953 by the
CIA</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">, can be
reversed. If Ganji's recommended path to "democracy"
sounds familiar, that is because it is identical to
</font>
<a href="http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/crudedesigns.htm">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>the
American plan for Iraqi
oil</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">, first
revealed during the tenure of Paul Bremmer. For reasons like this,
Ganji has drawn little sympathy in Iran outside the struggling reformist
(anti-populist) movement. He must therefore appeal to what he calls
the West's "civil society" (read: shadow government) and
Iranians living abroad for help.<br><br>
This should not come as a surprise because, like the ultra-right former
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her guru Friedrich von
Hayek, Ganji extols Karl Popper's elitist philosophy of freedom
throughout
</font><a href="http://www.hemaseyeganji.persianblog.com/">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>his
writings</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">, little of
which have been translated from Farsi. Thatcher and Hayek supported
Chile's mass murderer, General Augusto Pinochet, because he restored
market "freedom" in his country with the help of CIA.<br><br>
Ganji is not the first Iranian opposition activist who thinks like
Margaret Thatcher and yet declares, when he is cornered, that he admires
social democracy! But he is the one most embraced by Western
libertarian circles. Rumor has it that
</font><a href="http://www.nysun.com/article/35817">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>Noam
Chomsky, who last year added his name to a petition demanding Ganji's
release from prison, has agreed to meet with
him</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">. If
true, that should be an interesting meeting, because Ganji has
consistently called for deregulation and the shrinking of government in
Iran, as did Chomsky's nemesis, the late President Ronald
Reagan.<br><br>
<div align="center">(Puerto Rico is a colony of the U$ and it the
policies of the colonial power that lead to its rates of imprisonment
referred to below)<br><br>
<img src="cid:6.2.5.6.2.20060726115211.02ad1468@freedomarchives.org.1" width=488 height=325 alt="[]">
</font><font size=4><br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">SOURCE:
The International Centre for Prison Studies,
</font>
<a href="http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/rel/icps/worldbrief/highest_to_lowest_rates.html">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>
"Entire World -- Prison Population Rates per 100,000 of the National
Population,"</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238"> Accessed on
19 July 2006<br><br>
Download the chart and data as
</font>
<a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/PrisonPopulationRates.xls">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>an Excel
file</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">.<br><br>
<br>
</font></div>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>
<a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal190706.html#_ednref1">The
Open Letter Confiscated by Amnesty International: <br>
America's Own Political Prisoners Rot While You Grab the Spotlight, Akbar
Ganji</a><br><br>
</b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">As
family members and friends of a few of America's political prisoners, we
are alarmed that you have brought your campaign for prisoner rights in
Iran to our country. You revive the legacy of pitiful Soviet
defectors used by the Washington elite to justify wasting our nation's
budget on subsidies for "defense" contractors. The
attention showered on you and other worshippers of so-called Western
"freedom" keeps America's own dissidents cast as unpatriotic at
the margins of public debate.<br><br>
In the books and numerous articles you have authored, you have made clear
your fascination with member countries of the NATO military pact.
You have also spoken with admiration of Western meddling in Ukraine, the
so-called
</font>
<a href="http://freeganji.blogspot.com/2005/06/republican-manifesto-ii-7.html">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>
"Orange Revolution."</a><br><br>
</b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">
President Bush appreciates your support, as he desperately needs to
divert attention from America's kidnap and torture of resisters here and
abroad. In a White House statement aimed at the government of Iran
last year, he declared that
</font><a href="http://www.nysun.com/article/16897">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>
"America stands with
you,"</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238"> Mr.
Ganji. Former Israeli cabinet minister,
</font><a href="http://www.nysun.com/article/17463">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>Natan
Sharansky</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">, who
campaigns nonstop for the confiscation of Palestinian land by Jewish
settlers, joined President Bush to demand your release from prison in
Iran.<br><br>
You have called for
</font><a href="http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/015382.shtml">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>regime
change in
Iran</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238"> and hope your
publicity in New York and Washington will help democratic aspirations in
your country. But theatrics like your "hunger strike" at
the UN is drawing attention away from a 465-page condemnation of the US
government conduct sent to the UN by a coalition of leading human rights
organizations (see
</font><a href="http://www.ushrnetwork.org/">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>
www.ushrnetwork.org</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">).<br><br>
We have thousands of political prisoners in the United States who are
ignored by our media. Unlike you, they do not have wealthy
benefactors to fly them around the country and the globe. With
</font><a href="http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm#findings">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>2.2 million
prisoners</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">, America is
certified as having
</font>
<a href="http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/rel/icps/worldbrief/highest_to_lowest_rates.php">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>the world's
highest rate of
incarceration</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">. We
would like you to help us while you are in the spotlight by discussing
police brutality and prisoner torture in our country, too. After
all, as you have said "No one is free until all are
free." Iranians have as much right to interfere in the
internal affairs of the United States as vice versa, even if the almighty
West were
</font>
<a href="http://www.voanews.com/english/About/2006-06-19-voa53.cfm">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>"the
cradle of
civilization,"</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238"> as you told
the Voice of America in a recent interview.<br><br>
Your campaign makes clear that you believe only the world's most
dangerous (in your words, "advanced") countries deserve
national sovereignty. This is why you are here asking the West for
"moral support" against your government. We remind you
that similar pleas by Kosovo "dissidents" preceded 78 days of
intense bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO. An example of such expansive
"humanism" is
</font>
<a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=7851">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>
Reporters</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">
</font><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/barahona05172005.html">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>Without</a>
</b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">
</font><a href="http://www.voltairenet.org/article135300.html">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>Borders</a>
</b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">,
which hosted you last week with great fanfare in Paris. The
organization relies on funding from an American government entity called
the National Endowment for Democracy, whose largesse has supported a
number of disgruntled Iranian "intellectuals." <br><br>
We wish the outspoken American journalist,
</font><a href="http://www.mumia.org/freedom.now/">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#205553"><b>Mumia Abu
Jamal</a></b></font>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4 color="#2F3238">, could get
attention from Reporters Without Borders like you do, Mr. Ganji. He
has been on death row in Pennsylvania for 23 years on fabricated charges
because he speaks truth to power IN THIS COUNTRY. But Reporters
Without Borders specializes in embarrassing governments targeted with
orange and purple revolutions only, where NED spends millions to incite
"pro-democracy activists" like you.<br><br>
If you have come here to stand with America's power elite -- our people's
jailers -- our message to you is "Ganji Go Home!"<br><br>
Ron Romelo, J. J. Amistad, Lisa Sedmark, Will Harrison, and Rostam
Pourzal<br><br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#4E5F4C">Based in
Washington DC,
</font><a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal250506.html">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#205553"><b>Rostam
Pourzal</a></b></font>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#4E5F4C"> writes regularly on
the politics of human rights. <i>MRZine</i> has also
published Pourzal's
</font><a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal030805.html">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#205553"><b>"Market
Fundamentalists Lose in Iran (For
Now)"</a></b></font>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#4E5F4C"> (3 August 2005);
</font><a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal270206.html">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#205553"><b>"Open Letter
to Iran's Nobel
Laureate"</a></b></font>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#4E5F4C"> (27 February 2006);
</font><a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal090306.html">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#205553"><b>"Open Letter
to Iran's Nobel Laureate: Part
2"</a></b></font>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#4E5F4C"> (9 March 2006);
</font><a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal250506.html">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#205553"><b>"The Shah:
America's Nuclear Poster
Boy"</a></b></font>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#4E5F4C"> (25 May 2006);
</font><a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal300506.html">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#205553"><b>"Iranian
Cold Warriors in Sheep's
Clothing"</a></b></font>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#4E5F4C"> (20 May 2006);
</font><a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal120606.html">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#205553"><b>"MEK Tricks
US Progressives, Gains
Legitimacy"</a></b></font>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#4E5F4C"> (12 June 2006);
</font><a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal180606.html">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#205553"><b>"What Really
Happened in Tehran on June 12? Did Human Rights Watch Get It
Wrong?"</a></b></font>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#4E5F4C"> (18 June 2006); and
</font><a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal240606.html">
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#205553"><b>"Iran's
Western Behavior Deserves
Criticism"</a></b></font>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#4E5F4C"> (24 June
2006).<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=4 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=4>
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
</html>