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In this mailing:
China
on the Edge
by Gordon Chang
April 16, 2014 at 5:00 am
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The second thing we get wrong
about China is that it is safe to ignore periodic Chinese threats to
incinerate our cities and wage war on us. They employ salami-slicing
tactics, as with Scarborough Shoal... so that they do not invite
retaliation.
If we cannot say these things
clearly and publicly, the Chinese will think we are afraid of them. If
they think we are afraid of them, they will act accordingly.
Chinese leaders do not distrust
us because they have insufficient contact with us. They distrust us
because they see themselves as protectors of an ideology threatened by
free societies.
There is something very wrong in China at the moment. China, I
believe, has just passed an inflection point. Until recently, everything
was going its way. Now, however, it seems all its problems are catching
up with the Chinese state at the same time.
The country has entered an especially troubling phase, and we have to
be concerned that Beijing—out of fundamental weakness and not out of
strength—will lash out and shake the world.
So what happened in the past decade?
To understand China's new belligerent external policies, we need to
look inside the country, and we might well start with the motor of its
rise: its economy.
Everyone knows China's growth is slowing. Yet what is not obvious is
that it is slowing so fast that the economy could fail.
The Chinese economy almost failed in June. There were extraordinary
events that month including two waves of bank defaults. The Industrial
and Commercial Bank of China, the country's largest bank—the world's
largest bank—was obviously in distress: it even had to shut down its ATMs
and online banking platforms to conserve cash. The Bank of China, the
country's third-largest lender, was also on the edge of default.
There was panic in China in June, but central government technocrats
were able to rescue the economy by pouring even more state money into
"ghost cities" and high-speed-rail-lines-to-nowhere.
Doing so created gross domestic product—economic output—but that was
the last thing Beijing should have been doing at that—or this—moment.
China, at every level of government, is funding all its construction with
new debt. You think America has a debt problem; China's is worse.
As one economist told us recently, every province in China is a
Greece.
China, after the biggest boom in history, is heading into what could
end up as the biggest debt crisis in history. This is not a coincidence.
Soon, there must be a reckoning because the flatlined economy is not
able to produce sufficient growth to pay back debt. If we ignore official
statistics and look at independent data—such as private surveys,
corporate results, and job creation numbers—we see an economy that cannot
be expanding in the high single digits as Beijing claims.
How fast is the country really growing? In 2012—the last year for
which we have a full set of employment statistics—the number of jobs in
China increased 0.37% over 2011. This indicates that China could not have
grown by more than 2.0%
In 2013's third quarter, preliminary surveys show the number of jobs
decreased 2.5% from Q3 in 2012 and 4.0% from Q2 2013. That is an
indication that China's economy has already begun to contract both
year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter.
And why are China's severe economic problems relevant to us? Because
for more than three decades the Communist Party has primarily based its legitimacy
on the continual delivery of prosperity. And without prosperity, the only
remaining basis of legitimacy is nationalism.
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Naval Marines of
China's People's Liberation Army. (Image source: U.S. Marine Corps)
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The People's Liberation Army, which is configuring itself to fight the
United States, is the embodiment of that nationalism.
China's militant nationalism is creating friction in an arc of nations
from India in the south to South Korea in the north. Let us focus on the
Philippines and Japan.
Nearly two years ago, Chinese vessels surrounded and seized
Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines. Washington, not wanting to
antagonize Beijing and hoping to avoid a confrontation, did nothing to
stop the Chinese taking over the shoal despite our mutual defense treaty
with Manila.
The Chinese, however, were not satisfied with their seizure. They are
now pressuring Second Thomas Shoal and other Philippine territory, also
in the South China Sea. Beijing claims about 80% of that critical body of
international water as an internal Chinese lake.
As soon as the Chinese took Scarborough, they began to increase
pressure on Japan's Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. The barren
outcroppings are claimed and administered by Japan, but Beijing, which
calls them the Diaoyus, claims them as well. As a matter of international
law, the claim of the People's Republic is weak—Beijing acknowledged they
were Japanese until 1971, when it first asserted sovereignty over them.
Yet the weakness of the claim is not the problem. Many countries
pursue weak territorial claims. The problem is China's tactics. Beijing
is using forceful tactics to try to take the Senkakus, regularly sending
its ships into Japanese territorial waters surrounding the islands and
sometimes flying planes into Japanese airspace there.
Many people ask why the Japanese should care about eight barren
outcroppings. The reason is that the Chinese are acting like classic
aggressors. They were not satisfied with Scarborough, so they ramped up
pressure on the Senkakus. They will not be happy with just the Senkakus.
Chinese policymakers—and state media—are now arguing that Beijing should
claim Okinawa and the rest of the Ryukyu chain.
And recently, Beijing expanded its Air-Defense Identification Zone to
include airspace over Japan's sovereign territory, a clearly hostile act
and one that can lead to conflict.
There has been a noticeable increase in the tempo of China's
territorial incursions during the last year. This uptick has generally
coincided with the elevation of Xi Jinping as China's new ruler in
November 2012.
Of course, we all want to understand what is going on inside Beijing's
political circles and what is causing this new aggressiveness.
There are two theories. First, some think Xi Jinping has quickly consolidated
control and that he is really an ardent nationalist, that he is the one
pushing the military to act aggressively.
There is some support for this conclusion because it has been
repeatedly reported that he is personally directing Beijing's hostile campaign
to take the Senkakus.
Even some in the Xi-is-strong camp acknowledge the incompleteness of
the leadership transition, however. For instance, Kenneth Lieberthal of
Brookings, who is one of Xi's defenders, believes that the new leader is
a domestic reformer but cannot get on the wrong side of the ugly
nationalism the Party has fostered in the past. Lieberthal believes Xi is
allowing the military to engage in provocative behavior so that he will
have the political capital to push through economic reforms at home.
Second, others, including me, believe the transition has not been
completed. More than Lieberthal, I see a weak leader who does not control
the military. People who share this view, which is a minority one, are
concerned that flag officers are either making their own policies
independently of China's civilian leaders, or essentially telling
civilian leaders what policies they will adopt.
In short, I believe we should be careful speaking of "Beijing
this" or "Beijing that," but should be looking instead at
the factional messiness inside the Communist Party and realizing that the
People's Liberation Army is now the Party's most powerful faction.
Xi Jinping has, in fact, no faction of his own. People say he heads
the "Princelings," but that term merely describes sons and
daughters of either former leaders or high officials.
These offspring have views that span the political spectrum and do not
form a cohesive group.
Xi became China's supreme leader because he appealed to all factions,
in large part because he had no faction. He was, in short, the least
unacceptable candidate. And because he still has no identifiable faction,
he cannot afford to offend the generals and admirals, who, in my view
have been driving the bus for some time.
Some political analysts even joke that the military is now Xi
Jinping's faction.
In any event, China's external policies are of deep concern. It is not
just that Beijing is hostile; its foreign policy now makes little sense.
In the past, Beijing threw tantrums and even started wars when it wanted
to punish a neighbor. Chinese leaders were always smart enough to direct
their anger at just one or two targets to make sure they got what they
wanted. And many times they were successful.
Today, Beijing is taking on many others, all at the same time,
especially countries to its south and its east and the United States. How
many adversaries does a country need?
The Party is lashing out, and that is not a good sign. If nothing
else, it betrays a lack of strategic thinking. It is not promoting
worldwide revolution, as it did in the early years of the People's
Republic, but it is trying to upend the existing international order,
something that Mao also attempted. So we have to be prepared to face the
fact that China is no longer a status quo power.
Is China really going back to its Maoist origins? On the face of it,
this sounds absurd. Almost everybody believes China has left its past
forever, but that belief does not accord with the facts. The Chinese
political system, thanks to Xi Jinping, is now going on a bender, with
his Maoist and Marxist "mass line" campaigns, one right after
the other; his prolonged attack on civil society; and his new movement
promoting "ideological purification."
If the dominant view is correct—that Xi Jinping is now firmly in
control of China—it means that he must really believe in his extremist
positions.
Either way, Xi is roiling Chinese politics at the moment. For one
thing, he is purging political opponents under the guise of a crackdown
on corruption. One of these probes, against Zhou Yongkang, breaks the
most sacred rule of Chinese communist politics. To heal the Party's
grievous wounds caused by Mao Zedong's decade-long Cultural Revolution,
leaders in the early part of the 1980s, after the trial of the Gang of
Four, decided that no member or former member of the Politburo Standing
Committee could be investigated. Those at the apex of political power
were immune from prosecution.
The theory was that if leaders knew they would not be hunted down, as
they were in the Cultural Revolution, they would be willing to withdraw
gracefully after losing political struggles. In other words, Deng
Xiaoping, Mao's crafty successor, reduced the incentive for political
figures to fight to the end and, as a result, tear the Communist Party
apart.
Xi Jinping, however, is reversing the process and upping the stakes,
something evident in the tribulations of Mr. Zhou, the former internal
security chief, as well as the more famous Bo Xilai, once China's most
openly ambitious politician, who is now serving a life term after an
incompetently run show trial last August. The widespread use of criminal
penalties is a sign that China is returning to a period that many thought
was long past.
Last year, then Premier Wen Jiabao warned that China could descend
into another Cultural Revolution. Observers at the time thought he was
being melodramatic. He probably was not. China is on the edge, taking
wrong turns at the moment.
Most foreign policy establishments in Washington and other capitals
are doing their best to ignore what is happening in Beijing. They have
always hoped that China could become a partner for the U.S., rather than
another Soviet Union or, worse, a 1930s Germany or Japan.
And this leads us to the central question in Sino-U.S. ties today: How
are we going to develop good relations with a China that, out of weakness
or strength, is roiling the world?
Almost everyone says we need to talk to the Chinese because we talked
to the Soviets. Talking, the argument goes, will build good relations or,
at the very least, will avoid miscommunications and misunderstandings.
The argument sounds compelling. After all, who can be against good
relations? Who can be in favor of miscommunication and misunderstanding?
Since the early 1970s, however, the U.S. has talked to China in
every conceivable format, formal and informal, bilateral and
multilateral, secret and announced. Discussions have been held in
Washington and Beijing and many places in between. There have been state
visits, the Strategic and Economic Dialogues, and even the
"shirtsleeves summit" in southern California in June.
During the previous administration, the number of ongoing bilateral
forums between China and the U.S. reached fifty. Today, there are about
90 of them.
Yet as the interactions between American and Chinese officials have
increased dramatically during the Obama administration and the last one,
ties between the two nations have remained strained.
Obviously something is wrong. We have talked about what is wrong in
China. We also need to think about what is wrong on our side. There are
three things we are getting wrong.
First, we do not understand how the Chinese think. We fervently
believe that if we try hard enough, the Chinese will have to respond in
kind. This is a product of our reasoning that we are people, the Chinese
are people, we respond to gestures of friendship, so the Chinese will respond
favorably to our friendly gestures. By now we should have learned that
this line of reasoning, which has a surface logic to it, is faulty
because it has not in fact produced good outcomes.
Chinese leaders do not distrust us because they have insufficient
contact with us. They distrust us because they see themselves as the
protector of an ideology threatened by free societies.
The mistrust is inherent in their one-party state. It can never be
relieved as long as the Communist Party remains in power. As Ronald
Reagan taught us, the nature of regimes matters.
In short, illiberal regimes cannot maintain enlightened foreign
policies, at least over the long term. So we should not be surprised that
China cannot compromise or maintain good relations with its neighbors,
the international community, with us.
The second thing we get wrong about China is that we believe that it
is safe to ignore periodic Chinese threats to incinerate our cities and
wage war on us, like the reports that appeared in state media in October
2013 boasting how Chinese submarines can launch missiles with nuclear
warheads that can kill tens of millions of Americans.
These are real threats and every time we fail to respond to them, the
concept of deterrence erodes. Already, Shen Dengli of Fudan University in
Shanghai tells us, in public, that we have "no guts" to stand
up to China.
Bad things happen when your adversary does not respect you.
The third thing we get wrong about China is that we think is it
inadvisable to call the Chinese out in public. In 2012, for instance, we
learned that the Chinese military sold the North Koreans at least six
transporter-erector-launchers—TELs—for their newest missile, the KN-08.
And we said nothing to the Chinese in public.
Why is that omission important? Because we are not that concerned at
this moment with North Korea's longest-range launchers being used as
weapons. These launchers take weeks to transport, assemble, fuel, and
test.
We can destroy them on the pad. We are, however, concerned about the
nuclear-capable, road-mobile KN-08, which can hide and shoot. We should
remember that the Pentagon last March cited the KN-08 as one of the
principal reasons for going ahead with 14 additional ground-based
interceptors in Alaska and California.
So Beijing substantially increased North Korea's ability to wage
nuclear war on us, and we acted as if it did not matter. Personally
speaking, not offending the Chinese is low on my list of priorities.
And our bashfulness has other consequences. The Chinese, with
justification, complain that we are not being transparent with them about
the "pivot." We keep on saying that the pivot has nothing to do
with them, yet we are rotating B-52s through Australia and B-52s and B-2s
through Guam and the Chinese have to be asking what that is all about.
We need to be able to say, in public and in clear tones, that the
pivot is all about them, that the pivot is about ensuring peace and
stability in the region and they are the ones threatening it.
If we cannot say those things clearly, the Chinese will think we are
afraid of them. If they think we are afraid of them, they will act
accordingly. I repeat: bad things happen when your adversary does not
respect you.
Let me put all that we have just talked about into context. Chinese
leaders, it is true, have not launched a large-scale invasion since 1979.
Instead, they employ salami-slicing tactics, to grab territory in
increments, so that they do not invite retaliation. For instance, they
successfully salami-sliced Scarborough Shoal.
The Chinese were not the first to use this clever stratagem. We
actually know where they learned this because the Chinese were the
victims of these same tactics. The hardline Japanese military in the
1930s kept grabbing chunks of northeastern China.
The Chinese then were continually pushed back and humiliated. In the
second half of 1937, there was a feeling in Chinese circles that,
although Nationalist forces were no match for Japan's, Chiang Kai-shek
had no choice but to fight back.
Chiang ultimately made his stand after Japanese soldiers fired on his
troops in July of that year in a minor—and undoubtedly accidental—scrap
at the Marco Polo Bridge, a few miles southwest of what is now the
Chinese capital.
This is, of course, a lesson for us today. The parallels between then
and now are striking.
Then, the Japanese military, like the Chinese military today, was
emboldened by success and was ultra-nationalist. Then, like now,
civilians controlled Asia's biggest army only loosely. Then, the media
publicized the idea that Japan was being surrounded by hostile powers
that wished to prevent its rise. That is exactly what the Communist Party
says today about China.
Instead of ignoring Beijing's current salami tactics, as Washington
does, we should be alive to the fact that countries on China's periphery,
pushed to the limit by Beijing's unrelenting belligerence, could very
well be forced into the same decision that Chiang Kai-shek made in 1937,
to resist aggression with force of arms.
Let us all remember, World War II started not on the plains of Europe
in 1939 but near Beijing two years before.
We live in an era defined by the absence of major war, but this peace
may not last. At this moment, we do not know whether a Chinese political
system in turmoil will drive the country to become the aggressor of the
21st century, but we should be prepared.
We live in consequential times.
Libya:
Restoring the Monarchy?
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If the government fails... to
assert its power in the months to come it will become a de facto Somalia
II....Soon, these militias, if they have not already done so, will have
their own government that will contest the decisions of the paper
government of Tripoli…Indicators show that it is already fragmenting into
three countries." — Professor Mohamed Chtatou, University of
Mohammed V, Morocco.
On the occasion of a preparatory meeting for the 25th summit
of the Arab League in Kuwait, the Libyan government, on March 25, opened
the debate on the restoration of the monarchy in the country. "The
restoration of the monarchy [in Libya] is the solution that will
guarantee the return to security and stability. Contacts have already
been made, and we are in touch with dignitaries and tribal chiefs in
Libya, and also with the grandson of King Al-Senussi, Prince Mohamed
[Hasan Al-Rida Al-Senussi], who lives overseas," said the Libyan
Foreign Minister, Mohamed Abdelaziz, during the meeting. He added that
"many tribal sheikhs, who lived under monarchy and know it, prefer
such a system of government."[1]
In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the fragmentation of the Libyan
society has been particularly severe, and chances of the country's
dissolution are high. Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelziz believes that the
return of the Senussi rule -- the Senussi dynasty has always been
considered a symbol of national unity -- may stabilize the country. Sidi
Muhammad Idris Al-Senussi, the last king of Libya, ruled from 1951 to
1969, the year he was toppled by a military coup led by Libya's former
dictator, Muammar Gaddafi[2].
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King Idris I of
Libya on the cover of Al Iza'a magazine, August 15, 1965, No.14.
(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
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After the toppling of King Idris in 1969, Gaddafi imposed on the
country 42 years of harsh and unstable dictatorship that did not build
any much-needed national unity. The fall of Gaddafi did not bring any
social peace. Tensions within the country are growing. Tribal
confrontations, common delinquency and Islamist extremism are tearing the
country apart. Dr. Mohamed Chtatou, Professor at the University of
Mohammed V in Rabat, Morocco, wrote that if Libya does not find a national
cohesion, it risks becoming a failed state like Somalia:
In Libya, there is a government that has, on paper, a police and an
army, but this government exists only in Tripoli [the capital]; outside
of the capital, the country is ruled by the militias. Actually, the
Libyan example is very close to the Somali experience. If the government
fails in the months to come to assert its power on all the Libyan
territory, the country will become a de facto Somalia II, in the area. In
principle, Libya is already another Somalia: the militias, in certain
parts of the country, are already selling oil to foreign companies and
pocketing the money. Soon, these militias, if they have not already done
so, will have their own government that will contest the decisions of the
paper government of Tripoli. Post-Qaddafi Libya is bent on becoming three
countries or more if nothing is done on the part of the Tripoli paper
government. Indicators show that it is slowly fragmenting into three
countries: Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan. The only bold initiative
that could ultimately reverse this motion is the creation of a federal
government that would delegate home affairs to local governments. Will
the Libyan political class opt for that or go the way of the irreversible
fragmentation?"[3]
Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the Libyan
leadership imagined that the only way out of the present chaos was
represented by the reinstatement of the Senussi dynasty, the only
institution that, in the course of the young history of Libya, had
ensured some sort of national sentiment and of security and stability.
In the meantime, the Libyan government recently issued a decree
stipulating that the heirs of King Idris will regain their Libyan
citizenship and can recover the property confiscated by former dictator
Gaddafi. After the coup in 1969, the Senussi family was actually stripped
of Libyan citizenship and thrown out of the country. King Idris died in
exile in Egypt. The rest of the family, including Idris's grandnephew and
heir-apparent, Mohamed Al-Senussi, received the status of political exile
the United Kingdom.
The process of restoration of the monarchy, however, does not convince
the Senussi family itself. In a recent interview to the BBC, Mohammed
Al-Senussi, the heir-apparent, said that monarchy cannot work in
post-revolutionary Libya, and added that he does not have any desire to
rule the country.
According to Asharq Al-Awsat columnist Mishari Al-Zaydi, Prince
Senussi is right to refrain from responding to such call, "not
because the Senussi monarchy is not the solution, but because there are
no guarantees of its success, and times have changed. ... there is no
evidence that this nostalgia for the monarchy stems from deep-seated
conviction."[4]
"Similar calls [for the restoration of a monarchy] were made in
Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and they appear every now
and then in Egypt," according to Al-Zaydi.
In Libya, it seems unlikely that a monarchy might be a sort of magic
wand capable of producing instant results on the social texture of Libya.
It appears as though, after the many hopes raised by the Arab Spring,
Libya, as many other Arab countries, is back at square one.
The Libyan government does not know how to come out of instability or
stop the violence, and citizens are losing hope and respect for the
institutions governing the country.
A Martyr Ministry employee, Ali Al-Houti, interviewed by the media
outlet Magharebia, commented, "As far as I'm concerned, I accept
even Libyan folklore artist Nadia Astar to rule Libya, as long as we get
rid of these assassinations, bombings and concerns in the country."[5]
[1]
Magharebia.com, March 28, 2014
[2] King Idris
inherited from his father the title of emir of Cyrenaica, the eastern
coastal region where he was born. Idris' grandfather was Sayyid Muhammad
ibn Ali Al-Senussi, also called the Grand Senussi, who founded in
Mecca (Saudi Arabia) a political and religious Sufi order bearing the name
of his family. Grand Senussi promoted his politico-religious movement
across Libya, Egypt and other parts of North Africa. The Senussi movement
fought French colonial expansion in the Sahara and the Italian
colonization of Libya. Idris himself confronted the Italian colonial rule
and supported the Allies against Nazi Germany, during WWII. After the
war, the UN General Assembly announced that the future of the Libyan
provinces - Cyrenaica, Fezzan, and Tripolitania - should be decided upon
by representatives of the three areas in a national assembly. This
assembly established a constitutional monarchy and a consensus was
reached to offer the throne to Idris. The new king declared Libya's
independence in December 1951.
[3] Morocco
World News (Morocco), April 2, 2014
[4]Asharq
Al-Awsat (Saudi-owned, London-based), March 30, 2014
[5]
Magharebia.com, March 28, 2014
British
Woman May Face Execution in Iran for Insulting Islam
Expatriates Persecuted
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The notes from Dr. Azam's medical
journal include a crushed toe, broken fingers, missing fingernails,
broken ribs, a skull fracture, severe abdominal bruising, marks of
flogging on her back and feet [and] extensive damage to her genitals.
Dutch authorities expressed shock
and sadness over her execution and cut off diplomatic relations with Iran
for approximately 20 days.
Roya Nobakht, 47, presently being detained as a political prisoner in
Iran, may face execution for insulting Islam. She has lived in Stockport,
England with her husband for the last six years and holds dual
British-Iranian citizenship.
Her husband, Daryoush Taghipoor, has stated that his wife was arrested
while visiting a friend at Iran's Shiraz airport last October for
comments she had made on a Facebook group calling the government of Iran
"too Islamic." According
to a copy of her charge sheet seen by the UK's Independent; she
was transferred to Tehran and charged with "gathering and
participation with intent to commit crimes against national security and
insulting Islamic sanctities"-- crimes punishable by death.
In an interview, Mr. Taghipoor told the Manchester Evening News
that "his wife is not well at all...she has lost three stones [42
lbs]… and is scared that the government will kill her." He also said
that a confession had been extracted from his wife "under
duress." As is well documented, torture is systematically used by
Iranian authorities to obtain confessions from political dissidents and
even from some common prisoners.
Ms. Nobakht's fears are not unfounded. Iran's persecution of
expatriates is nothing new. The first known case was that of Ms. Zahra
Kazemi, a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist who died under torture in 2003
while in custody. Ms. Zahara Bahrami, a Dutch-Iranian, was hanged in
2011. Three Canadian-Iranians; Saeed Malekpour, Hossein Derakhshan and
Hamid Ghassemi-Shall, along with American Amir Hekmati, were all
arbitrarily arrested while visiting relatives in Iran on vague
anti-government charges. With the exception of Mr. Ghassemi-Shall, who
was recently released, each one presently languishes inside Iran as
political prisoners under dire conditions.
Ms Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist who had left Iran
in 1974, returned in 2003 to cover a story about Iran. She was soon
arrested and detained in Evin prison on charges of espionage. As Iran
does not recognize dual citizenships, Ms. Kazemi was not allowed
representation by Canadian authorities. She later died in custody. The
Iranian officials claimed she had died as a result of a stroke but
refused to return her body to Canada. In 2005, however, Dr. Shahram Azam,
a doctor with the Iranian security forces who had examined Ms. Kazemi's
half-dead body, fled Iran. He testified that the victim's body showed
extensive signs of torture administered over a few days. The notes from
his medical journal include a crushed toe, broken fingers, missing finger
nails, broken ribs, a skull fracture, severe abdominal bruising, marks of
flogging on her back and feet, extensive damage to the genitals and
peculiar deep scratches on her neck. She was 52 years old and the first
victim of the Islamic regime's war of terror on Iranians holding dual
citizenship. Her body has never been returned to her son in Canada. After
her murder, especially under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen
Harper, diplomatic relations between Iran and Canada deteriorated
significantly.
Ms Zahra Bahrami, 45, who held dual Dutch-Iranian citizenship, had
travelled to Iran to visit her ailing daughter. She was arrested in 2009
for participating in anti-regime protests and taken to the dreaded Evin
prison. According to eyewitnesses, Ms Bahrami was tortured so severely
she could not sit or stand easily and was denied medical care for serious
lung complications. On Jan 29, 2011, she was suddenly hanged at 5:00 a.m.
without anyone's knowledge. She was then hastily buried by the
authorities in the absence of her children. Dutch authorities expressed
shock and sadness over her execution and cut off diplomatic relations
with Iran for approximately 20 days.
Mr. Amir Hekmati 31, an American born in Arizona to Iranian parents
and who was visiting Iran for the first time, was arrested in 2011 and
charged with "spying for the CIA." He was tortured until he
finally gave a televised confession. As a result he was sentenced to
death but thanks to heavy international pressure, in 2014 his sentence was
finally changed to 10 years in prison. Three Canadians -- Mr. Saeed
Malekpour, 39; Mr. Hamid Ghassemi-Shall, 45; and Mr. Hossein Derakhshan,
38 -- were arrested while visiting relatives in Iran in 2008, on various
charges. Malekpour was charged with designing software that was used in
an "un-Islamic" way by third parties, whereas Ghassemi-Shall
was accused of the customary espionage. Both were tortured while kept in
solitary confinement for over a year and sentenced to death. Malekpour
wrote from prison that his jaw had been broken while his interrogators
were trying to extract his teeth with pliers, and that he had only
confessed to crimes dictated to him by his interrogators under torture
and threats to his family. Malekpour's death sentence was eventually
commuted to life in prison, while Mr. Ghassemi-Shall, was released in
September 2013 -- both due to successful campaigns by various
international human rights organizations.
Derakhshan -- nicknamed the "blogfather" -- is best known
for introducing blogging to Iran in 2001. He was sentenced for the
contents of his blogs to 19.5 years in prison -- the heaviest sentence
ever handed down to a blogger.
The Islamic Republic of Iran does not recognize dual citizenships and
considers all those who were born in Iran or to Iranian parents as
Iranian citizens subject to its deadly Islamic penal code. One hundred
and thirty-one offenses are punishable by death including theft,
adultery, homosexuality, political dissidence, drug possession and
blasphemy. It would be fair to conclude that travelling to Iran with any
citizenship carries a risk. One enters a lawless and unaccountable
country that lacks any degree of human rights, and where torture and
hangings are an integral part of its government's rule and survival.
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