The U.N.'s deafening silence

By Joseph Klein
April 12, 2006
World Net Daily
Original Source: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49706

Iran murders human-rights advocates and develops nuclear weapons while campaigning for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council. Why is Kofi Annan silent? 
On Jan. 24, 2005, three members of the resistance movement against the current repressive theocratic regime in Iran wrote a letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan, calling on Annan to set up a special fact-finding mission to investigate the plight of political prisoners in Iran. Annan's response as far as we can tell was deafening silence. 
In the interim, as reported by the National Council of Resistance and the Peoples Mojahedin Organisation, the Iranian regime executed one of the authors of that letter within the last couple of months, Mr. Hojat Zamani – a longstanding political prisoner in Iran who was reportedly subjected to horrendous torture before he was executed. Another of Iran's political prisoners who contributed to the letter, Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi, is scheduled to be executed on May 16, 2006. 
While the Iranian regime continues these murderous acts against its own people, as well as its aggressive push toward nuclear weaponry in defiance of the international community, it is simultaneously seeking a seat on the new U.N. Human Rights Council. The first election for the Council by the members of the General Assembly will take place on May 9, 2006 – just a week before Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi's scheduled execution. Yet the reaction at U.N. headquarters and around the world to this bold, hypocritical effort by Iran to whitewash its own deplorable record on human rights is also deafening silence. 
Then again, why should we be surprised? The Security Council cannot reach consensus on taking any effective measures to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions. Annan has gone nearly underground on this issue, making general declarations about the importance of keeping negotiations with Iran going, but not using his bully pulpit to place the blame for the current standoff where it truly belongs. 
Moreover, whenever Kofi Annan has the opportunity to reward Iran with a position on a high profile U.N. panel, he does so. For example, he appointed an Iranian government representative to a seat on the U.N. Working Group for Internet Governance, tasked to come up with policy recommendations for international rules on Internet governance. Annan did this, despite the fact that Iran has censored Internet communications within its borders, using advanced technology to filter out access to any sites suspected of fostering political dissent. 
More recently, the regime has cracked down on Iranian citizens whom the government accuses of having illegal Internet sites and of disturbing the public mind and insulting sanctities. Laws were enacted in October 2004 covering cyber crimes under which anyone who disseminates information aimed at disturbing the public mind through computer systems or telecommunications ... would be punished in accordance with the crime of disseminating lies. Yet the Iranian representative continued to participate on a U.N. working group that was formulating proposals for global governance of the Internet! 
Annan also selected a representative from Iran to participate in one of Annan's pet projects – the Alliance of Civilizations – which is supposed to promote a peaceful dialogue between the Islamic world and the West. While the Iranian representative whom Annan chose – former President Mohammad Khatami – is more moderate than Iran's current megalomaniac President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Khatami is only moderate by the standards of the extreme Iranian theocratic state. Iran continues to participate in the so-called Alliance of Civilizations while Ahmadinejad threatens Israel with extinction. 
Now the clock is ticking toward two fateful days in May. If Iran wins a set on the Human Rights Council on May 9, Ahmadinejad and the fanatical mullahs who actually rule the country will surely take the vote as a signal that they have a free hand to do whatever they want to the people who dare to stand up to them. Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi's life may end on May 16, and the lives of other political prisoners incarcerated in Iran's torture cells will literally hang in the balance. 

Joseph A. Klein is the author of Global Deception: The UN's stealth Assault on America's Freedom.