#EUIranForum - Islamic Republic Needs More PR!

I was following via twitter, the Europe-Iran Forum that was held in Grosvenor Square Hotel in London, over the last couple of days.

Although the claim was that the Forum intended to gain "practical insight from experts" and get "most relevant, up-to-date information from Iran and Europe", the tweets suggested most speakers were painting an unrealistic super rosey picture of the Islamic Republic.

Not once did I see a tweet about how the IRGC are putting a stranglehold on Iran's economy or the rampant corruption that has become so prevalent that it no longer surprises anyone, regardless of its astronomical magnitudes.

Nor did I see any tweets about leading businessmen in Iran frequently becoming escape goats for the country's malaise that so many of them have applied for St. Kitts & Nevis passports to safeguard them against a rainy day.

Nor was there anything about the endemic nepotism in Iran or the huge brain drain from the country or most important of all, the intrinsic animosity and suspiciousness by the Supreme Leader and the hardliners towards anything considered Western. At times it seemed the forum was about a different country altogether.

To cap this all, the selectiveness of the Forum organisers in which press organisations could attend the Forum did not help to inspire confidence. WSJ and TehranBureau for example were barred from attending the event, while Press TV, IRNA and IRIB [Iran state TV channels] were warmly welcomed to report from the conference.

But the one tweet I saw from Dina Esfandiary of IISS, made me laugh most:

So its the lack of PR that's the problem?! How much more spin is needed by these network of lackeys and lobbyists to make a backward theocracy and a religious apartheid that is run by a mafia economy to look like a normal country?

At the same time that the forum was going on and the attendees were being dazzled with the bright horizons ahead, the British-Iranian Ghoncheh Ghavami who went back to Iran after voting for Rouhani and was arrested when trying to go and watch a volleyball match, was tried behind closed doors charged with "propaganda against the regime". Not once since her arrest, has she been able to see her lawyer.

Seven Years Prison for Iranian Student, Maryam Shafiipour

Maryam Shafiipour

Iranian female student activist, Maryam Shafipour has become the first Iranian student to be sentenced to long term prison for political activism since Rouhani became the president of the Islamic Republic.

Maryam Shafipour was an active member of Karroubi's Women's Committee election campaign team. She received a suspended sentence in 2010 on usual charges of "spreading propaganda against the 'holy establishment' of the Islamic Republic" and was banned from continuing her higher education. 

In July, 2013, Maryam was detained again and spent 60 days in solitary confinement with no access to a lawyer. 

Yesterday she received a seven year sentence by the notorious judge Salavati after seven months of being interrogated in prison and refusing to repent for her peaceful activism. 

Amnesty international issued this statement on Maryam's plight in January this year:

DOCUMENT - IRAN: IRANIAN STUDENT HELD FOR PEACEFUL ACTIVISM: MARYAM SHAFI’ POUR

Jack Straw and Lord LeMont may have the impression that things have changed in Iran and "Tehran resembles any European city like Madrid", but the truth is despite the nice shop front window for the outside world, its business as usual inside the shop.

Jackass Straw and his "Scientific Observation" from Iran

In 1979, Andrew Young, Carter's ambassador to UN at the time of the Islamic revolution in Iran, described Khomeini as a “saint”.

Carter's ambassador in Iran, William Sullivan, referred to Khomeini as "Iran's Mehatma Gandhi".

Carter's national security adviser, Brezhinsky, thought “we can get along with Khomeini”.

When three US newspapers actually bothered to read Khomeini's writings and published accounts of Khomeini's reactionary and anti-Western views, Henry Precht, the Head of US State Department's Iran Desk during Carter's administration, attacked the three US newspapers by saying they were "severely misleading and scaremongering" and likened the newspaper articles that revealed the true nature of Khomeini, as “at best a collection of school student notes and at worst a forgery”.

Well now with hindsight we know who was a forgery and who was a school student! But the naivety and childishness of these Western politicians continues to this day. Jack Straw's "scientific observation" in the Independent after his short trip to Iran, is nothing short of the foolishness of the Carter administration officials in 1979 resurrected.

Jack Straw and his British companions on their trip to Iran, were wined and dined by the Islamic Republic establishment and were shown what the regime wanted them to see - bit like North Korea hosting tourists there. Straw's entire delegation had other agendas, other than carrying out a "scientific observation" from the onset of the trip. Lord LaMont, with his lucrative business dealings with Iran as a director of the Bali Group plc and Jeremey Corbyn, probably the most leftwing member of the Labour Party with his regular column in the Morning Star, had their business and political agendas to satisfy for the main objective of their trip.

Unlike the European delegation of MPs who went to Iran before Straw's trip and met with Iranian dissidents; Straw's delegation had no such courage. They were happy to carry out their "scientific observation" by meeting just one side and not scratching too deep below the surface.

The fundamental cause of people like Straw and the Carter administration making such comical and tragical misjudgements is that their criteria for evaluating Islamic Republic officials is not examining their track records and deeds or read their writings, just nice smiles and nice words suffice.