Diplomacy & Crisis News

America has no greater friend than Britain. Or had.

Mike Flynn may be cooperating with Mueller’s investigation, but the president thinks there’s nothing to worry about.

Why Trump’s most un-American moment can’t be overlooked.

Egypt’s brute-force approach to counterterrorism isn’t working in Sinai.

Reports suggest Trump is mulling replacing the embattled secretary of state with CIA head Pompeo, and putting Sen. Tom Cotton at CIA.

Dans le cadre des commémorations nationales, le ministère de la culture a préféré mettre l'accent sur l'anniversaire de la sortie du film Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), de Jacques Demy, plutôt que sur le centenaire de la mort d'Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917). À vrai dire, il n'est pas certain que (...) / Art, Culture, Histoire, Personnalités, Anarchisme - 2017/12

President Trump’s antipathy toward the intel community extends to the Intelligence Advisory Board.

The West needs a strong, committed, engaged White House to hedge against China’s inexorable rise.

Prosecutors say Chinese hackers from a mysterious cybersecurity firm stole corporate secrets from three big firms.

Très virulent à l'égard de l'Arabie saoudite durant la campagne électorale de 2016, le président américain entend désormais faire profiter son pays de la richesse du royaume. Une démarche intéressée qui ne tient pas compte des difficultés structurelles d'un pays engagé dans d'incertaines réformes (...) / Arabie saoudite, États-Unis, Commerce des armes, Économie, Géopolitique, Médias, Commerce, Diplomatie, Relations bilatérales - 2017/12

Civil rights, and some news about Best Defense

Gen. “Jack” Cushman, former commandant of the U.S. army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) from 1973-1976, died earlier this month at 96.

 

This week, Tehran announced it would continue a missile development program that defense analysts say could allow Iran to launch nuclear weapons. It was a public threat that has understandably stirred strong response from the US and the west: the risk of nuclear proliferation by a fanatical regime is indeed a threat to millions across the region. But there is another, potentially greater threat from within Iran, one made more insidious by the fact that no one outside of Iran seems to care but which nonetheless imperils the values and moral conscience of the civilized world. I am speaking of the massacre of some 30,000 Iranians—including my uncle— at the hands of the state in 1988. And the arbitrary killings and executions continue.

 

In 1981, during the early years of Iran’s so-called “Islamic Revolution” my uncle Mahmood ‘Masoud’ Hassani was 21 years old and in his second year studying Economics at Tehran University. On June 30, my uncle never returned home from school.

 

Nearly two traumatic months passed before Masoud called my family to say he had been in jail since his disappearance and had been sentenced to serve ten years in the notorious Evin Prison. Even in absence of any evidence, he was convicted of ‘acting against national security’ and ‘spreading corruption on Earth’ all because he had distributed pro-democratic pamphlets near his campus.

  

When my uncle was in the seventh year of his sentence, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a notorious fatwa, calling for the immediate execution of Iran’s political prisoners. Death panels were commissioned to demand that blindfolded prisoners repent for their actions and those of their cellmates. Those who complied were granted amnesty. Those, like my uncle, who offered no such apology, were taken through a set of doors from which they would never return.

 

Without ever seeing the inside of a courtroom or being allowed to contact his loved ones, my uncle was hanged at the age of 27 sometime between July 28th and August 1st 1988. 

 

Unfortunately, his story is not unique. In less than five months, 30,000 of Iran’s brightest students, professors and devoted activists–many of them members of the pro-democratic PMOI-MEK–suffered the same fate. Expectant mothers and children as young as 13 were among the victims of these systematic killings, which effectively decimated an entire generation of Iranians who had devoted themselves to the struggle for democracy.

 

But 29 years later, the mullahs’ regime has still not succeeded in silencing the people’s calls for freedom and justice. Last year, the son of Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, the intended successor to Supreme Leader Khomeini, released an audio recording that detailed the grave extent of the purges. In it, Iranian jurists themselves described an obvious crime against humanity. For leaking this tape, Ahmad Montazeri was swiftly arrested, but not before unprecedented public discussion began of the 1988 massacres.

 

Thus, 60 million Iranians who were born after the revolution came to confront an issue that had been long swept under the rug, both by Iranian authorities who fear a public uprising and by thousands upon thousands of victims’ families who, with the most noble of intentions, have silently endured their grief and sadness, for fear of reliving the horrors they know this government to be capable of. Their fears are well-founded: many members of the judiciary who oversaw the execution of Khomeini’s fatwa in 1988 occupy the same posts today.

 

Despite the ongoing threats of violence, torture and execution, brave Iranian youth have recently risen up to put this issue at center stage, as when presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi was overwhelmingly rejected at the polls, in large part, due to his role in the 1988 massacre.

 

The newfound scrutiny has forced a number of Iran’s high-ranking governmental officials to speak to the issue head-on and acknowledge the historical record. But they have not done so with contrition. On August 28th 2016, the Iranian prosecutor and politician Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said of the mass executions, “We are proud to have carried out God’s commandment and to have stood with strength and fought against the enemies of God and the people.”

 

As dissatisfaction, disillusionment and dissent continue to grow among Iran’s young and vibrant population, authorities have begun to feel the pressure and initiate new plans to conceal their history. There are plans to build commercial centers over the unmarked mass burial sites often frequented by families of the fallen.  Doing so would destroy crucial forensic evidence that would allow for perpetrators of the 1988 massacre to be brought to justice.

 

Civil society organizations continue to receive unsettling news about persecution and arrests of surviving family members who have sought information about the location of their loved ones’ remains. Maryam Akbari Monfared, for instance, is currently serving a 15-year sentence at Evin Prison, without family visits or medical care. Three of Mayram’s brothers and her sister were executed in the course of the purges, and her own ‘crime’ consists of having published a letter asking for an explanation of these executions and the subsequent secret burials.  

 

As grassroots efforts surrounding this issue gain momentum, two things should give global audiences pause. First is the ongoing impunity of the Iranian judicial system, with at least 3,100 executions being carried out since Hassan Rouhani took office in 2013. The second is the silence of international governmental bodies tasked with documenting these very sorts of human rights abuses.

 

For families of victims, like my own, it has become painfully clear that the maintenance of economic ties with an oil-rich country has repeatedly trumped earnest efforts to speak out on Iran’s human rights record. With an abundance of contemporary and archival evidence supplied to the appropriate intergovernmental agencies, how else might we explain their silence if not as an instance of quid pro quo? Judging from the lack of outrage or historical record in the west, do atrocities that do not directly affect others simply not happen? Are these truths inconvenient?

 

 

Sara Hassani is a PhD. Student and Fellow in Politics at the New School for Social Research and works as an Adjunct Lecturer in Political Science at Brooklyn College – CUNY. 

The post Time for Reckoning a Long Hidden Massacre appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

A look at the North's new ICBM, Russia's Lavrov says Trump the same as Obama

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Du Qatar au Liban, l'Arabie saoudite enchaîne les fiascos lorsqu'elle se mêle de politique régionale au Proche-Orient, où elle est accusée d'avoir armé idéologiquement, voire militairement, certains djihadistes. Le discrédit est à son comble avec la guerre sans issue, et sans merci pour les civils, que (...) / Arabie saoudite, Armée, Conflit, Géopolitique, Islam, Mouvement de contestation, Religion, Yémen - 2017/12

French soldiers on patrol in Paris during Euro 2016 tournament

Since 2006 and peaking after 2008, several employee suicides took place after the privatization of France Telecom. Now part of international telecommunications giant Orange, sixty France Telecom employees committed suicide over a three year period as cut backs destabilized that company and developed into what could be described as a toxic work environment. In 2016 the incidences at France Telecom, now Orange, lead prosecutors to attempt to put the onus on management as it was claimed that cuts were tied in with attempts to purposely create a work environment that would negatively encourage employees to leave for their jobs.

Creating a difficult work environment married with drastic cutbacks might have violated a French law that establishes that anyone who harasses another with repeated actions with the aim or the effect of degrading working conditions is liable to a year in jail and a fine of €15,000. Directors of France Telecom at the time may eventually end up being fined or spending time in prison, but it is unlikely a violation of labour law would result in a severe punishment, and proof in a criminal law context may be too difficult to establish in the case of France Telecom. A national discussion, tribunal or even a trial may help French society understand why so many employees took their own life while working at France Telecom. While France still tries to deal with the tragedy, 2017 brought more mass employee suicides, this time within France’s police services.

Securing France after several attacks on French civilians have placed the burden of protecting the public on France’s police officers and Gendarmerie Nationale. With a drastic change in the security environment in France over the last few years, France’s protectors have been stretched to their limits trying to prevent attacks on innocent civilians and directly on themselves. Despite new policy approaches in 2015 to help prevent further suicides, eight officers took their own lives in a one week period alone. The numbers are truly shocking year after year as 45 French police officers and 16 members of the Gendarmerie have committed suicide this year alone. In 2015, the new policy came about after 55 police officers and 30 gendarmes took their lives. Unfortunately the added stress combined with already poor working conditions and a general negative sentiment towards officers has produced a difficult and dangerous situation for many officers according to France’s police union Alliance.

Like France Telecom, many employees and officers seem to feel trapped in impossible situations from their employer or in their role in society. Employment in France and Spain for younger employees is hard to come by with unemployment in some European countries for adults under 35 reaching as high as 25%. Simply switching jobs may feel like losing a career and a life spent establishing stability and the ability to provide for one’s self and their family. While there are many factors that can be difficult to understand for those not working in those environments, the fact that French employees commit suicide in certain organisations at such a high rate over a few short years is clearly a national crisis. These issues are not limited to France, as incidences at Foxconn and other international companies demonstrate that toxic work environments and tactics to constructively dismiss employees can lead to abusive practices on individuals and groups of employees. Solutions need to be developed starting with understanding the problem, requiring perhaps documented, recorded and directly experienced officials in work environments where it is difficult to have a voice, and to have independent reviews not linked to already established power structures in their organisation. Most importantly, solutions and legal actions need to have teeth so that policy solutions are not solely produced and documents without an effective change in policy. These solutions need to be applied evenly and fairly on large companies as they are on smaller ones. Threats that fall into the realm of criminal law should be treated as criminal as well as labour law violations. A national emergency that leads to terror incidences may require a more specialized and coordinated approach as well that gives assistance, training and more officers for support. Those solutions are only the first steps in addressing these types of issues in the workplace.

The post French Employee Suicides after the France Telecom Tragedy appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.