Everything You Need to Know about Iran But the Mass Media, the Republicans and Hillary Clinton Wouldn't Tell You

By Col. Ann Wright, TruthOut.org. Posted January 1, 2009.

However, the director told us that because of U.S. sanctions, Vestas, a Danish wind energy company with whom the Iranian company has had a contractual relationship, has now refused to honor its 15-year contract to furnish critical parts for the wind turbines.

As a result, Saba Niroo has 50 huge 70-foot-long blades and corresponding chassis and installation towers lying useless in its warehouse and warehouse yard. Saba Niroo may go bankrupt in six months if it is unable to complete and sell the wind turbines -- all because of U.S. sanctions and pressure.

As a part of citizen diplomacy, we decided to defy sanctions and show our support of alternative-energy programs, by purchasing shares in Saba Niroo. We have also decided to purchase shares in Vestas, which has a big U.S. headquarters in Portland, Ore. As shareholders, we could put pressure on Vestas to honor its contract with the Iranian company.

Human Rights in Iran

On the question of human rights in Iran, executions, political prisoners and rights of gays and lesbians, many Iranians strongly want changes in their government's policies. In response to a question on Sept. 24, 2007, from an audience at Columbia University in New York, Ahmadinejad drew widespread criticism when his answer was translated as, "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals in our country, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who told you that we have it." In October 2007, one of Ahmadinejad's media advisers said that the president had meant that "compared to American society, we don't have as many homosexuals -- in Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country."

Homosexual acts are punishable by law: Sodomy (defined as "sexual intercourse with a male") is punishable by execution, and punishment for "lesbian acts" is 100 lashes. However, conviction takes the testimony of four witnesses, and if the accused recants before witnesses testify, the accused will not be punished. The discussion of human rights of youth and gay youth combined in the much-publicized 2005 execution by hanging of two young men in Iran. Some say they were executed solely because they were gay, and others say the two were convicted and hanged because they sexually assaulted another boy.

Interestingly, sex-change surgery is legal in Iran and there are more sex-change operations in Iran than any other country except Thailand. The Iranian government provides grants up to $4,500 for the operation and further funding for hormone therapy on the theory that persons wanting a sex change have a "treatable disorder."

Iranians want change to come from within their society, not imposed by another government, especially one, as we were reminded, that has its own human rights issues, including incarceration of the highest percentage of its citizenry of any country in the world, high rates of execution (Texas in particular), state-sponsored kidnapping from other countries (known in the Bush administration as extraordinary rendition), imprisonment without due process, extrajudicial courts and a military and an intelligence agency that are notorious for torture.

Women's Issues

When thinking of women in Iran, many in the West immediately respond with comments about the clothing women must wear. Few realize that 70 percent of all university students are women, 30 percent of doctors in Iran are women, 80 percent of women are literate (88 percent of men can read), women receive 90 days of maternity leave at two-thirds pay and right to return to their jobs, and the number of children per woman has declined from seven in 1979 to 1.7 now. Abortions are illegal in Iran, but it's the only country I know of where couples must take a class on modern contraception before being issued a marriage license. It has the only state-supported condom factory in the Middle East, and it produces 45 million condoms a year in 30 colors, shapes and flavors.

In one of the most successful instances of women's grassroots organizational pressure on the government, in September 2008, more than 100 advocates for women's rights successfully lobbied against proposed changes to marriage laws that were detrimental to women and forced the Iranian Parliament to drop the regressive amendments.

Clothing Restrictions

Yes, there are mandatory clothing rules for women, including wearing a scarf and clothing that covers the arms to the wrists and legs to the ankles, and they are cited by Western women as a human rights concern. In fact, as our aircraft arrived at the Tehran International Airport terminal, the aircraft crew announced, "By the law of the country of Iran, women cannot leave the aircraft without a scarf on their heads -- and there will be an Iranian official outside the aircraft to return women who are not properly covered." While some Iranian women say wearing the scarf is burdensome, others are comfortable with the dress code. In any case, clothing restrictions are not the main focus of women's rights advocates. Rights to custody of children and property after divorce, right to education and health care are more important than mandatory wearing of a scarf.

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Ann Wright is a 29-year Army/Army Reserves veteran who retired as a colonel, and a former U.S. diplomat who resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. In December 2001, she was on the small team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is the co-author of the book Dissent: Voices of Conscience.

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