Clinton, Obama Weigh-In on Saudi Rape Victim

 

By Elle Alexandra Jerome

 

Harrisburg, PA, 25 November 2007 (Arabisto.com):

Democratic presidential hopefuls have widely condemned the punishment of "The Girl from Qatif," calling on the Department of State and President George W. Bush to condemn the sentence in the interest of human rights. So far, both the White House and the State Department have been silent on the matter, as a delicate balancing game between the price of oil and the price of a woman's life are weighed.

The first to issue a statement was Senator Barack Obama who wrote a letter calling for the condemnation of the sentence and diplomatic intervention to Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. He wrote, ""That the victim was sentenced at all is unjust, but that the court doubled the sentence because of efforts to call attention to the ruling is beyond unjust."

In a statement issued by Senator Clinton's office, she condemns the sentence and calls on Preisdent Bush to put pressure on the Saudi government to intervene, saying, "I urge President Bush to call on King Abdullah to cancel the ruling and drop all charges against this woman."

Meanwhile, other Democratic presidential contenders have also issued statements, including Senator Joseph Biden, who is the co-author of a bill to promote the end of gender-based violence.

"I'm outraged by the decision of a Saudi Arabian court to punish the victim of a brutal gang-rape," Biden said.

The White House has refused to meddle in the affairs of Saudi Arabia, turning a blind-eye to its human rights violations in the interest of maintaining its strongest OPEC ally. High-level government officials have repeatedly stated to the media that it is a matter to be settled by the Saudi courts internally and that no significant, ... [Read More]

 Saudi Rape Victim Sentenced, US Remains Silent

 

By Elle Alexandra Jerome

 

Harrisburg, PA, 20 November 2007 (Arabisto.com):

Congress is out-of-session on Thanksgiving recess, the White House is silent and judges in Saudi Arabia have sentenced a 19 year-old Shi’a woman to 200 lashes for being gang-raped. It is claimed that although her rapists have received actual prison sentences, she is being punished for using the media to try and get her sentence reduced. The judge says it’s because she was in the car of an unrelated man, but really I’ve never heard of such a thing coming out of Saudi ever from friends or colleagues, so I’m skeptical. I see ***HONOR CRIME*** in big flashing Vegas ***GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS*** lights over this ruling. I love this legalized honor crime garbage that comes floating along through the Islamic court system. It’s such a bastardization of the Shari’a. Suddenly Shari’a is suspended in favor of some kind of patriarchal blood lust. Oh you know what it smells like, we can smell it in non-Muslim societies, too…

What we have here is two things: the first is a woman who is brutally raped 14 times and almost killed in the process and a judge who feels that his power was somehow undermined, and thus this girl has to be punished further. Why doesn’t he just rape her, too? She’s already getting 100 lashes for the first 14 rapes, why not just throw her away? Treat her like a prostitute? Throw her out like a dirty rag. The men who ravaged her spend 1-5 years in a Saudi jail, they’ll get out. She’ll be nearly beaten to death and once they’re done and she’s conscious again, she’ll never be able to get the scars off of her back: no surgeon will be able to remove them. No one will be able to get the scars of a gang rape from her mi... [Read More]

Iranian-American Scholar Haleh Esfandiari boarded a plane to Austria today and is en route to the country where her sister lives for an indefinite visit with her husband, George Mason professor, Shaul Bakhash and family after spending eight months under house arrest and inside Tehran's notorious Evin Prison. It is not clear if there are any provisions to her release and departure from Iran. Meanwhile, the fates of four other Americans missing in Iran are unknown, including those of Kian Tajbakhsh and Ali Sharkeri, both imprisoned since May.

Ahmadinejad Says Esfandiari Should Go Home Elle Jerome Philadelphia, PA Tehran-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is reported as saying today that formerly-imprisoned Iranian-American scholar and director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Middle East program, Dr Haleh Esfandiari, should be allowed to return to her family in the United States and at the very least, be permitted to contact them. He added though, today in a press conference in the Iranian media, that the final decision on Esfandiari's fate would be at the discretion of the judge in charge of her case. Esfandiari was released on bail on August August 21st, after spending more than three months in solitary confinement and under intense interrogation in the country's infamous Evin Prison.

After over 100 days in captivity and months of pressure from US-Academics and the government, today Iran's judiciary freed imprisoned scholar Haleh Esfandiari after her $3 billion Iranian rials ($330,000 USD) in bail money was posted. The $330,000 was raised by Dr Esfandiari's elderly mother who used the deed to her home in Tehran to pay the debt.  In the United States, family, friends, and colleagues are rejoicing with the news that Dr Esfandiari is one-step closer to returning to her post at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

 

The Woodrow Wilson Center issued a statement for immediate release this afternoon, with Director Lee Hamilton stating, "We thank all who offered their prayers and their efforts on behalf of Haleh’s release. An extraordinary amount of people from around the world rallied to Haleh’s side. We have had many interlocutors—official and non-official—on Haleh’s behalf. We have had many staff members at the Wilson Center who worked tirelessly in the hope that this day would come. This outpouring only reinforces Haleh’s life’s work on behalf of dialogue, understanding, and bringing people together.”

 

Although the charges against Dr Esfandiari have not been dismissed, her release from Evin Prison remains a hopeful sign that the efforts of grassroots diplomacy and non-partisanship will bring her home.

 Esfandiari 'Confession' to Be Aired in Iran

 

By Elle Alexandra Jerome

 

Harrisburg, PA, 17 July 2007 (Arabisto.com):

 

Haleh Esfandiari's "confession" is to be aired on state television on Wednesday and Thursday in a program on Iranian state-run television, entitled "In the Name of Democracy."

 

The confessions have been widely condemned as being sensational, false, and above all coerced. Today, Dr Esfandiari and her colleague, Dr Kian Tajbakhsh, were shown briefly on a state news channel, with Dr Esfandiari dressed in a black headscarf looking haggard and showing the toll that 71 days of solitary confinement has taken.

 

The so-called "confession" is seen as propagandist rubbish by a regime that is struggling to maintain power in an increasingly modernized, youth-oriented culture. The interview purports, through clever editing and script writing, that Esfandiari had a role in democracy in Georgia and in orchestrating a "velvet revolution" in Iran.

 

For more, read the New York Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/world/middleeast/17iran.html

As U.S. Puts On the Pressure, Iran Looks for Evidence Against Detained Academics

 

By Alexandra Sophie Jerome

Harrisburg, PA, 17 July 2007 (Arabisto.com):

 

Iran is on a fishing expedition. They’re fishing for the rarest of beasts: indisputable proof that Haleh Esfandiari and her Iranian-American colleagues have somehow undermined the authority of the Iranian state. According to Ali Reza Jamshidi, the judiciary spokesman, the government has unearthed new evidence that is supposedly in-line with the charges levied against Dr Esfandiari and her colleague, Kian Tajbakhsh.

 

When asked what the evidence may be, Jamshidi failed to elaborate, leaving the public to speculate as to what the most recent brainstorming session inside the judiciary had concocted.

 

As the United States puts more pressure on Iran, the Islamic Republic is putting more pressure on its own citizenship, with a top-down reform of the government from the office of the president to the judiciary and all the way to the regulation of women’s dress on the streets of Tehran. Many observers cite the United States’ foreign policy and its clearly hostile posturing towards Tehran in the form of democratic initiatives that are causing widespread paranoia amongst the ruling elite. In the meantime, the United States edition of Glamour Magazine has created a profile and locus of mobilization in their August 2007 issue of the women’s monthly.

 

Editor Cindi Leive has written a brief piece on-behalf of Dr Esfandiari’s daughter, Haleh Bakhash, to bring awareness to her mother’s imprisonment at Evin Prison. The article includes a link to Amnesty International and the Free Haleh campaign.

 

Dr Esfandiari’s imprisonment has finally landed in the laps of the average American woman, and this is where those of us who work in Musl... [Read More]

By Alexandra Sophie Jerome

 

WASHINGTON, D.C., 30 June 2007, (Arabisto.com):

 

 

On June 27th, Senator Hillary Clinton issued a statement further condemning the detention of imprisoned Iranian-American academic, Haleh Esfandiari and her colleagues Parnaz Azima,  Dr Kian Tajbakhsh, and Ali Shakeri.

 

 

In her statement issued on Wednesday,  Senator Clinton wrote:

 

 

"I am saddened and dismayed by the continued detention of Dr. Haleh Esfandiari and Parnaz Azima, and the recent arrests of fellow Iranian-Americans Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh and Ali Shakeri. I have joined the fifteen women Senators in writing to Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urging him to intervene on behalf of Dr. Esfandiari and Ms. Azima, and I am gravely disappointed that the situation in Iran has been allowed to escalate. It is an unconscionable violation of human rights to detain and imprison individuals without just cause, and we cannot let this situation stand.

 

 

All of these individuals have taken steps to promote peace and understanding between Iran and the United States. Dr. Esfandiari is head of the Middle East Progam at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where she has worked to raise awareness of international women's issues. Ms. Azima is a journalist for Radio Farda, the Persian-language service of Voice of America/Radio Free Europe, where she has presented unbiased information on current events.

 

 

Dr. Tajbakhsh is an urban planning expert who has consulted on behalf of the World Bank on development projects, and Mr. Shakeri is a founder and board member of the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at the University of California Irvine. Allegations that their activities - activities that are in the public's interest, and a public service - are attempts to overthrow the Ir... [Read More]