EGYPTIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST DENOUNCES THE DEAL WITH THE ‘IRANIAN DEVIL’ BY ANDREW HARROD
http://philosproject.org/iranian-egypt-nuclear-deal-obama/
An Egyptian expatriate and human rights activist recently took to a Washington, D.C. podium to vehemently denounce the recent Iran nuclear agreement as “shaking hands with the devil.” Calling the accord an “unholy marriage” between America and Iran, the Rev. Majed El Shafie stressed to the National Press Club that the Iranian people will suffer under this accord, which he said will do nothing to stop Iranian nuclear proliferation and power ambitions.
“The first victim of this Iranian deal will not be American [and] will not be an Israeli, but will be the Iranian people themselves,” said Shafie, the founder and president of the human rights group One Free World International, adding that the agreement’s estimated $150 billion sanctions relief for Iran will simply strengthen an Islamic Republic regime notorious for its human rights abuses. “Things will get worse very quickly for Iranians.”
Shafie presented a recent OFWI report outlining the Islamic Republic’s human rights abuses of Iranians, especially women, who are “constantly subjugated and treated as less than human.” The report detailed the treatment of religious minorities like the Baha’i and reported that Iranians accused of homosexuality or adultery are punished with public stoning executions. In addition, young Iranian girls can legally marry at age 13 or even earlier with a court’s permission, and the government allows female genital mutilation, a practice that is widely observed in Iran’s Sunni regions.
Despite the capital offense of apostasy, young Iranian Muslims continue to risk their lives to convert to Christianity, and many Jews have recently been arrested for “spying for Israel on spurious grounds.” Shafie said that the Islamic Republic uses Jews as an “easy tool for state propaganda to mask official anti-Semitism, and Jewish school principals must, in practice, be Muslim and the schools must operate on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.”
Beyond detailing Iranian human rights offenses, the OFWI report described the Iran nuclear agreement with the P5+1 as a “mistake of monumental proportions” that “will endanger not only the Middle East but also America, its interests and allies everywhere.” Shafie noted that while Iranian nuclear proliferation terrifies Israel, the “biggest enemy of Iran is Saudi Arabia,” which squares off against Iran in regional Shiite-Sunni conflicts. A war between Saudi Arabia and Iran could be the end result, with Russia and China supporting Iran and the West siding with Saudi Arabia.
Calling the Iran accord the “same historical mistake” British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made in signing the 1938 Munich agreement with Adolf Hitler, Shafie said that “there wasn’t peace then … and there will not be peace now.” He pointed out that, in an effort to keep his place in history untainted, President Barack Obama will continue to support the nuclear deal and thereby secure an untarnished legacy. “Otherwise, it would be nothing but a catastrophe for him,” Shafie said. Considering the aggressive tactics utilized by the Obama Administration during the Iran nuclear negotiations – such as veto threats against opponents of the accord – Shafie mused, “If it is a good deal, you don’t have to threaten anybody.”
By ignoring Iran’s prominent and well-documented human rights issues – which the Iranian people had hoped would be addressed in the nuclear deal – the accord “just sold the people of Iran with a very cheap price.” Shafie said that this fact indicates that Iranian “black oil is more valuable than the red blood of the innocents.”
He dismissed the Obama Administration’s recent speculation that the agreement hastened reform in an Iranian regime that supposedly already shows signs of moderation, and called the controversial reporting of Reese Ehrlich – who has written from Iran’s police states of Iranian Jews supporting the agreement and Iranians seeking to “reform” the Islamic Republic – as “nonsense.” He added, “I don’t understand why he would write false information like this,” and pointed out that Ehrlich’s report was contradicted by the journalist’s own people inside Iran. Arguments by former CIA analyst and Georgetown University Professor Paul Pillar that the Islamic Republic had lost its aggressive zealotry prompted Shafie to say that, “With my all due respect, the CIA was not right abouteverything.
“Iran will not change unless the people have their own voice,” he emphasized. “The Iranian people – especially the youth – are the key for true democracy in Iran.” He carefully pointed out that that change might come only through bloodshed, as indicated by the 90,000 soldiers who suppressed the 2009 Green Revolution. But the Obama Administration backs the Islamic Republic, a fact that Shafie said reminded him of America’s previous support of individuals who later became enemies, such as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Libya’s anti-Ghaddafi rebels. “What is the definition of insanity?” he asked. “Repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome. That’s exactly what we see today.”
The Iranians’ plight is personal for Shafie, a former Muslim who came from a “very prominent legal and political family in Egypt.” His conversion to Christianity and move to human rights activism in 1998 led to severe government torture, a death sentence andflight into exile. He said that he still has nightmares and bears the scars inflicted on him by his captors, who poured salt into his open wounds after torturing him as he hung upside-down. “The regime in Egypt or the regime in Iran; one is Sunni, one is Shia. It doesn’t matter, but that is what a dictator regime will do to its own people,” he said. “I have to fight for these people, because they used to be me and I used to be them. I would be damned if I left them behind.”
The abandonment of the Iranian people to suffer under their country’s theocracy – which completes a dangerous trifecta of disadvantages – is just one more reason to oppose the nuclear deal. As Iranian repression strengthens domestically, Iran will also gain resources for violence abroad, a fact that even deal proponents recognize. The agreement’s stated rationale of preventing Iranian proliferation has little prospect of fulfillment. Not just Iranian human rights victims are left wondering what led to such a bad outcome.
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