In Case You Missed It: "To Protect Human Rights, Companies Must Pull Out Of Iran"

In Case You Missed It: "To Protect Human Rights, Companies Must Pull Out Of Iran" Op-Ed By UANI President, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, and Board Member Irwin Cotler Runs In Local Papers Across America The following Op-Ed by UANI President, Ambassador Mark D.Wallace, and Irwin Cotler, a member of Parliament in Canada, has appeared in multiple publications over the past week, including newspapers in California, Indiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, and Texas. To protect human rights, companies must pull out of Iran By Mark D. Wallace and Irwin Cotler The Prince George's Sentinel February 2, 2012 Late last year, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on human rights, Ahmed Shaheed, briefed the General Assembly about the state of human rights in Iran, and he painted an extremely bleak picture. In his report, Shaheed documented Iran's brutal record of persecuting religious and ethnic minorities within its borders - in particular the Baha'I - and decried Iran's "dramatic" increase in executions, which according to Amnesty International totaled more than 600 last year. As if that weren't troubling enough, Shaheed reported that the regime in 2010 conducted more than 300 secret executions at Vakilabad prison in the city of Mashad. Certainly, it's helpful to have more light shed on the repression occurring inside Iran. Yet no matter how diligently international officials might try, there is simply no way to find out its full extent and scope. Indeed, the Iranian regime is notoriously secretive and opaque about its activities, and dismissive of international inspectors and human rights officials. Perhaps all we can be sure of is that Iran has an abysmal human rights record, and companies who do business there seriously risk having their products misused for nefarious ends. The evidence is overwhelming. As The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News have reported in-depth, the Iranian regime exploits telecommunications companies and technologies to track and spy on democracy activists, as well as to censor news and block services. Indeed, as one detained journalist, Saeid Pourheydar, revealed - officers not only knocked out his front teeth during captivity, but they presented him with transcripts of his tapped called, emails and text messages. This is all an effort to keep the Arab Spring from spreading to Iran by aggressively cracking down on protesters through the help of Western technology. Companies around the world have also indirectly aided Iran in its public executions. Last year, United Against Nuclear Iran sent crane manufacturers pictures from Iran showing that their cranes were being used to hang Iranians in public squares. Thankfully, as a result of UANI's efforts to highlight the misuse of their equipment, manufacturers like Liebherr, Konecranes, UNIC, Tadano and Terex took the principled stand of ending their business in Iran and sent a message to the regime that they do not want their products being used for such heinous acts. UANI has been putting similar pressure on telecommunications companies, including Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and MTN. In November, UANI confronted the Chinese corporation Huawei, which had 1,000 employees and six offices in Iran, and was providing the regime with mobile technology that could be abused to track down human rights activists and political dissidents. Huawei had partnered with Iranian firms that work directly with Iran's military and intelligence services - the same individuals who have been implicated in the deaths of U.S. and NATO troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and who were involved in Iran's 2011 plot to commit terrorist acts on U.S. soil. Thankfully, Huawei responded to UANI by announcing that it would no longer seek new contracts in Iran and would scale down its existing business there. This was the first time that a major Chinese firm voluntarily pulled back from Iran, and it disproved a common argument used by Western firms, that pulling out of Iran would just result in Chinese companies rushing in to fill the void. Just a week after Huawei's announcement, Nokia Siemens Networks announced a similar decision. Given what we know about the human rights situation and the regime's abuse of technology, there are no excuses left for a company to be doing business in Iran. Even if companies intend for their products to be used purely for commercial, civilian or other legitimate uses, the Iranian regime has proven that it will gladly misuse them to violate human rights. Information about the nature of the regime and its manipulation of Western technology is widely available, and companies that continue to provide such technology should be held accountable. The human rights situation in Iran is deteriorating, and we can be certain that even more abuses are being committed outside the careful view of the international community. Companies must be responsible and cut off their Iranian business, lest they allow the regime to continue turning today's products of progress into tomorrow's tools of terror. Ambassador Mark D. Wallace is president of United Against Nuclear Iran. He served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Representative for U.N. Management and Reform. Irwin Cotler is a member of the United Against Nuclear Iran Advisory Board. He is a member of Parliament in Canada and a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. Click here to read the piece on The Prince George's Sentinel's website. Click here to learn more about UANI's Tech & Telecom campaign. Click here to learn more about UANI's Cranes campaign. Click here to read coverage of UANI's success with Huawei in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Reuters. ### United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran should concern every American and be unacceptable to the community of nations. Since 1979 the Iranian regime, most recently under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's leadership, has demonstrated increasingly threatening behavior and rhetoric toward the US and the West. Iran continues to defy the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations in their attempts to monitor its nuclear activities. A number of Arab states have warned that Iran's development of nuclear weapons poses a threat to Middle East stability and could provoke a regional nuclear arms race. In short, the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran is a danger to world peace. United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons. The Objectives of United Against a Nuclear Iran Inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime, including its desire and intent to possess nuclear weapons, as well as Iran's role as a state sponsor of global terrorism, and a major violator of human rights at home and abroad; Heighten awareness nationally and internationally about the danger that a nuclear armed Iran poses to the region and the world; Mobilize public support, utilize media outreach, and persuade our elected leaders to voice a robust and united American opposition to a nuclear Iran; Lay the groundwork for effective US policies in coordination with European and other allies; Persuade the regime in Tehran to desist from its quest for nuclear weapons, while striving not to punish the Iranian people, and; Promote efforts that focus on vigorous national and international, social, economic, political and diplomatic measures. UANI is led by an advisory board of outstanding national figures representing all sectors of our country.

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