Rights group decries Iran’s ban on 60 foreign organizations

Image by wstera2 via Flickr

Updated: Wednesday, January 06, 2010

18:30GMT—1:30PM/EST

Washington, 6 January (WashingtonTV)—Amnesty International said on Wednesday that it fears that a ban by the Iranian government on contact between Iranian citizens with 60 organizations, including human rights groups, will further isolate the population.

On Monday, the deputy intelligence minister for foreign affairs said that it was an offense to communicate with the groups, which were accused of having played a role in inciting unrest following June’s disputed presidential election.

Among the groups blacklisted were Human Rights Watch, Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy, as well as media outlets such as the BBC and the US-government funded Voice of America [VOA].

“The move leaves anyone making such contacts at risk of prosecution and appears designed to hide from the world the true scale of what is happening in Iran and to obstruct reporting on human rights violations,” Amnesty International said in a statement.

The deputy intelligence minister, who was not named, also stated that it is illegal for political groups and parties to receive any financial and non-financial aid from abroad.

The official also called on Iranian citizens to avoid “unconventional contacts” with embassies, foreign nationals or centers linked to the banned organizations, according to state broadcaster IRIB.

Amnesty International also condemned the recent arrests of journalists and human rights defenders in Iran, who it said have been instrumental in providing information on the “gross right violations occurring in Iran”.

Both the ban on contact with the 60 international groups and the arrests are a breach of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a state party, said the human rights group.

On Wednesday, the pro-reform website, Rahesabz, said that Iran has arrested more than 180 people in recent days, following anti-government protests on 27 December.

Sources: Amnesty International website, IRIB News, Rahesabz website

Related articles by Zemanta

• Jamal Abdi: The Latest Tool for Iran's Opposition: iPhone Apps (huffingtonpost.com)
• Will Military Torture Be Transferred to the United States? (firedoglake.com)
• These protests should shame the west into a change of policy on Iran | Timothy Garton Ash (guardian.co.uk)
• New iPhone app allows uploads from Iran to VOA (mountainrunner.us)

Pakistan Lifts Longtime Ban on Political Activities in Restive Tribal Areas

By SALMAN MASOOD

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Asif Ali Zardari announced Friday that he was lifting a longtime ban on political activities in the restive tribal regions in the northwest, hoping to reduce the influence of the Taliban and Islamic militancy in the areas.

The seven semiautonomous tribal regions have never been fully incorporated into the country’s legal and political system. They are instead still governed by a set of 100-year-old rules, known as Frontier Crimes Regulations, dating from the British empire.

Rights groups have long denounced the rules as draconian and Pakistan’s political parties have urged the government to do away with them, calling them a dark legacy of British colonial rule.

“Today, I am announcing the permission of political activities in the F.A.T.A. to bring them into the main political stream,” Mr. Zardari said in a live broadcast, referring to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, as the region is formally known.

Mr. Zardari chose a symbolic moment to make the announcement: the eve of the national holiday marking Pakistan’s 62nd year of independence from the British Empire.

But analysts here said the announcement also seemed timed to coincide with a visit by Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy for the region, who is scheduled to arrive in Islamabad on Saturday.

The ban on political activities and parties had created a vacuum that was increasingly exploited by militants and religious extremists, allowing the Taliban and Al Qaeda to tighten their hold on the region as they mounted attacks on tribal elders and the area’s political overseers appointed by the central government, analysts and political workers here have said.

“Now, political parties can organize themselves in the tribal areas and political process can start,” said Sheik Mansoor Ahmed, an official of the governing Pakistan Peoples Party. “It was a longstanding demand.”

Farhatullah Khan Babar, the spokesman for Mr. Zardari, said that under the Constitution, the president was empowered to make regulations for the tribal areas, giving him the authority to lift the ban.

The reform package now envisages broad and fundamental changes in the colonial-era regulations, which had given the officials administering the areas, called political agents, unbridled power and authority.

Under the reforms, arbitrary arrest of men, women and children would be curtailed; a special judicial commission similar to a high court would be set up; and the finances of the political agents would be audited.

Still, the announcement was not welcomed uniformly.

Mr. Zardari’s coalition partners sharply distanced themselves from it.

“We were not consulted,” said Muhammad Zahid Khan, a senator belonging to the Awami National Party, A.N.P., a nationalist party that leads the government in the North-West Frontier Province.

“Whatever good or bad comes out of this decision, we do not own it,” he said.

Rights groups and analysts expressed concern over the lack of accord between the Pakistan Peoples Party and its coalition partners.

“The lack of agreement between the coalition partners would mean that the changes would become controversial and the whole process would not remain smooth,” said Ibn-e-Abdu Rahman, a director of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a private group.

“So far, as permission for political activities is concerned, it is a very healthy development,” he said. “It is an advance and would enable the people to gradually come out of the stagnant tribal relations.”

But he warned that there were still some vested interest groups in the tribal regions “that do not want complete democratization of the areas.”

Ahmed Rashid, a journalist based in Lahore and the best-selling author of the book “Taliban,” said he felt that the changes were introduced now under pressure by the United States and Britain.

“It is a good move,” Mr. Rashid said, “but I wish it had been done a year ago.”