Iran: Ahmadinejad's Chief Aide "Not Too Many People in the Prisons"

Yesterday we ran a special feature on President Ahmadinejad's bold revision of Iran's internal situation: "I'm in Favour of Protestors". But he's not the only one making fanciful declarations: during the trip to New York, his close friend, brother-in-law, and Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai was also making some eyebrow-raising statements. The key extract from the interview with The New Yorker:

LAURA SECOR: I want to turn to domestic affairs in Iran. Last night on “Charlie Rose,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said that the opposition in Iran is functioning freely, and that those who have been imprisoned are only those who vandalized property, people who broke windows or set cars on fire. Do you hold that to be true?

Mahmoud’s Iran Wonderland: Ahmadinejad “I’m in Favour of Protestors”

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: Absolutely, it’s true. There are actually not too many people in the prisons. There were hundreds and thousands of people who came on the streets voicing their opinions. If we had to capture all of them, the prisons would not even have space. The few that are in prison are the ones who vandalized and created violence and took away the safety of the people.


LAURA SECOR: And yet international groups have documented thirty-eight journalists in prison in Iran and eighteen more on temporary furlough. Their charges have nothing to do with vandalism. Why are these people in prison?

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: Vandalism is not only about committing an offense by yourself. These people have practically provoked others to commit acts of vandalism. We have thousands of journalists working in different fields and they are still active and they have never finished their jobs. But they have created a climate in which violence prevailed.

LAURA SECOR: This is a political crime you are speaking of, not an act of setting a car on fire. You’re saying that these people, because of their words—

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: There are laws in every country. And people must obey the law to have a healthy society. Nobody has been arrested for their words. But there have been people who have made massive propaganda campaigns to provoke people and to create a state of agitation in the country. So they tried to do it in order to provoke people to violence. Of course, different crimes have different punishments. And this is not the responsibility of the government, but of the judiciary, which is an independent power. [Ed. note: the Iranian judiciary answers to and is appointed by the Supreme Leader.] I’m trying to just express my opinion. There are some people who are involved in organized activities. They have organized certain groups and actually they have tried to bring cars and different things from different cities and concentrate them in Tehran. And there are also people who are related to these groups and they try to do their job through the mass media. But this is quite different from those people who are just journalists. The ones in the prisons are part of those organized groups. And naturally I cannot say they are not criminals. The position of the government is to help these people during the legal proceedings. The judiciary is independent, but the government has the good will to help these people.

LAURA SECOR: I’m wondering why your government has such good will if these people are a threat to the state as you say.

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: They are no threat. These people seek to change the state and they have made tremendous efforts to do it, but they are not in a position to carry it off. They are not a threat. They are not on that scale. They are in prison because they broke the law.

LAURA SECOR: So if they broke the law, why should your government press for leniency for them?

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: These people have families. And some of them are regretting their actions, and we cannot see any danger from their side. So if it is about reducing their sentence it is a good position.

LAURA SECOR: You also have more than a hundred reformist politicians, people who were active in the campaigns, who are in prison, and some of whom were placed on trial last summer. Are you claiming that these people, too, including former vice-president Mohammad Ali Abtahi, including former interior minister Mostafa Tajzadeh, are these people also involved in setting cars on fire or inciting others to acts of violence?

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: Those who prepare a conducive ground for riots, and who try to create a situation of anarchy, are offenders. Anybody can belong to the opposition groups. But there are people who are going to organize and concentrate on regime change, and they do everything toward these goals. Show me any country in the world that does not consider these activities to be crimes. Could they be encouraged in the United States or any country in Europe? No. But they are free to express their opinions freely, or to express their opposition or discontent against the government. It is strictly forbidden by law to organize activities that create a situation of anarchy.

LAURA SECOR: I’m confused by your response. For instance, Mostafa Tajzadeh was the campaign manager for Mir Hossein Mousavi, a candidate who was approved to run in the presidential election. And he was arrested before there was any disturbance in the streets.

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: That’s not true. Thousands of people were involved in the election campaigns. There are many friends of Mr. Tajzadeh who have not been arrested.

LAURA SECOR: But people were arrested in the party headquarters the day of the election—this was before there was any disturbance in the streets.

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: Many of them were arrested but they were not sent to prison. Some of them have not been arrested at all. Some of them were detained temporarily and freed immediately. They were not charged. So the difference is that this group of people tried to organize certain activities in the society. They created anarchy and violence. Mr. Tajzadeh has other friends that were active in the party headquarters and they still continue in their activities.

LAURA SECOR: But the party has been closed down. Why were the two main reformist parties banned in a state that has free opposition?

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: Political parties have a responsibility to create a healthy political situation in the country. If any party tries to move in a direction that is against the national interest, it will not be allowed to continue its activities. There are certain regulations for creating a party. The founders of the party must be committed to obeying the law. If they violate the law, their party will be shut down. But those people are able to create other parties in the future. The problem is that the leaders of these parties have faced problems. Maybe they can renew their activities and reopen their parties.

LAURA SECOR: One of the things that was confusing to me in the charges against some of the prisoners was that I saw that some people were charged, as a crime, with speaking with foreign reporters, and yet you and I are able to speak without a problem. What is the difference between their situation and yours? Why it is possible for some people, who are officials, to speak with foreign reporters, while others, who are not, don’t have that right?

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: No, no. That’s not true. It is a mistake. It’s not true. We don’t have such a situation. They could be in contact with foreign reporters in the past. Maybe something made you believe that such a thing has happened to them. Maybe the people who have been arrested now and they are in prisons have had some interviews with reporters, but that is not the real crime they’ve been charged with. People who are against the government say that these people have been charged of having interviews with foreign journalists. If we consider that a crime, there are many people who should go to prison. This is not considered a crime, and it is not against the law now, and it’s not going to be in the future. Our president talks to the foreign mass media and journalists. If it is against the law, the president shouldn’t do it. If it is not against the law, nobody should be detained or arrested.

LAURA SECOR: To finish with the domestic and human-rights questions, do you believe that in the time since the elections last June there has been any incident that was mishandled? Is there anything to regret, from the government’s side, or do you believe the government has handled the situation perfectly?

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: Nothing was mishandled. The West has a double-standard approach toward human rights. They try to use it like a political tool. For example, during the elections, they have massive propaganda against Iran at that time. The same thing is always happening here in the United States and in Europe. But they only cover the news on this side. If something happen in Iran, they write about it for many months and talk about on television, radio, newspapers. When we were here during the General Assembly, before that there was another meeting in Pittsburgh, and there were some demonstrations. Police treated the people violently. The same thing happened in Europe. Nobody talked about the human-rights situation at that time, and they never talk about that. If something like that happens in Iran, they talk about it for many years, and we have to answer the questions about human-rights violations. So they always follow double standard. The governments and the political systems in the West don’t believe actually in human rights. I would like to refer to a historical fact, if you are allowed to publish this. When Saddam Hussein militarily attacked Iran, the rest of the countries all supported him. And at that time, there were mass executions in Iraq. In order to continue to support Saddam Hussein, they issued a lot of reports about human-rights abuse in Iran. And they put Iran in the black list of human-rights violators. But at the same time they took Iraq off the black list. Later on they found out who Saddam Hussein was. But nobody asked any questions about why they have supported Saddam Hussein. But when they decided to topple Saddam Hussein, Saddam then was transformed into a criminal. No matter who is a criminal or a human-rights defender, the point is that we should see what the West wants and what are their goals.

LAURA SECOR: So in your view, how do we resolve inconsistencies regarding human rights? Is it preferable to say that we have no international regime of human rights, no international standards of human rights, or is it better to make an effort to apply them equally everywhere?

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: Yes, there should be some legal regimes to defend human rights. We believe the West is not defending human rights. Look at the situation in our region, in the Middle East. Many countries are not democratic, and nobody is talking against them in the West. In Iran, in the past thirty-one years we had about thirty elections. Now compare the rights enjoyed by Iranian women with the rights in other countries. Why aren’t we talking about the women’s situation in those countries? Why there is no interest on the part of the Western mass media to talk about this? We do not say they shouldn’t talk about human rights. We believe they should talk more about it. But they should say the right things. And we believe they should not use it as a political tool.

LAURA SECOR: So do you believe that if you heard more aggressive criticism of human-rights violations in other countries in your region, that you would find it more acceptable to receive criticism of human-rights violations in Iran?

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: I don’t say I’m against criticism on human rights. But it doesn’t exist here. Why do they take the position that they are defenders of human rights and we should respond to their requirements? One per cent of the U.S. population are in prison. In Iran, it’s .2 per cent, and most of them are drug traffickers. Nobody is talking about prisoners in the United States. Should there be an international determination against human-rights abuses in United States prisons? Is there any interest on the part of international organizations to do this? I don’t think so. If someone is executed in any part of the world—of course we don’t try to see any person sentenced to the death penalty. But if someone is executed in our country according to the law, they make a huge cry that there has been human-rights abuse. Do you know how many people were killed during the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? It would be the number of people killed in executions in one hundred years’ time. The number of people killed in Iran and the numbers of all the world together cannot compare with the specter of crimes committed by the United States.

LAURA SECOR: Iran has the second-highest rate of execution in the world.

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: No.

LAURA SECOR: After China.

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: Most of the executions are of major drug traffickers who are involved in big drug business. Do you want to take all of them in the United States? We’ll send them to the United States if you want. We can coördinate. Send the drug traffickers to the Western countries. They are threatening people’s lives, threatening the lives of our young people with drugs. And we are sending our soldiers to the border with Afghanistan to stop this, and they are getting killed. When we arrest those traffickers, should we give them some prize for their actions? You should see the reasons for these executions. Certainly without any doubt nobody is ever executed for expressing political views. But the Branch Davidian cult, what happened to them in the United States? Nobody is paying for such a story. They have no mercy, the West has no mercy on these things. They have no respect for human rights. I’m talking about the government, not the people. The people are equal. There is no difference between the people in the West and the East.

LAURA SECOR: The main critics of Iranian human-rights policy have not been Western governments but international organizations and nongovernmental organizations that study human rights.

ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: They are under pressure. For example, let’s talk about the N.P.T. Why is there no talk about disarmament? They always talk about proliferation. You know the meaning of proliferation? What we have now, that’s all right, but let’s not increase the number of arms. They are the biggest liars of the world, since the creation of Adam until now, and they are living in the United States. They are unique. And unfair. The policymakers in the United States. You cannot find people to be compared with them in history

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/05/esfandiar-rahim-mashaei.html#ixzz0n8ZrKu77

Comments

[Catherine]

Ah-ha! A rare specialist!
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/laura_secor/search?contributorName=Laura%2520Secor" rel="nofollow">http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/laura_se...

[Catherine]

Ah-ha! A rare specialist!
http://tinyurl.com/ksa4mu" rel="nofollow">http://tinyurl.com/ksa4mu
Too bad Ms Secor will probably now be on Ajmadinejad's black list of western journalists after having bestowed so much rope upon his beloved that he hanged himself over and over.

[M.Ali]

Mr Mashaei made a good point about US prisons...

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-prisoners-per-capita" rel="nofollow">http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_c...

[Catherine]

That "one good point" Mashaei made about US prisons would have been both "good" and relevant IF the discussion were about common criminals in the general prison population. Unfortunately for the incredibly confused Mr Mashaei, this segment of the interview was about political prisoners.

[DC]

"You should see the reasons for these executions. Certainly without any doubt nobody is ever executed for expressing political views."

Didn't they just execute two young men a few months ago for being "monarchists"? Doesn't that constitute execution for political views?

[DC]

"Political parties have a responsibility to create a healthy political situation in the country. If any party tries to move in a direction that is against the national interest, it will not be allowed to continue its activities."

So basically, 'if we like you, you can stay. If we don't, tough luck.' Key words here are "national interest" (based on who's opinion?) and "a healthy political situation" (most would argue that the Greens are trying to acheive just that.

"You should see the reasons for these executions. Certainly without any doubt nobody is ever executed for expressing political views."

Weren't two young men recently (few months back) hanged for being "Monarchists"? Does that not constitute execution on the grounds of the person's political views?

[wdavit]

M. Ali,

Statistics can lie. 57% of the federal prison inmates(the bulk of all inmates) are in jail because of drug offenses. We give them long sentences but don't kill them thus they prop up the numbers quite a bit. Many states like Iran actually pursue death sentences for drug offenders thus their incarceration rates will appear much lower. Regardless the US does need prison reform.

However as Catherine noted this was again a deflecting response from Iran. The question was specifically about political prisoners and Iran once again would not answer it.

Thx
Bill

[wdavit]

Well even the "moderate" shows his colors. It was more of the same regime lies, denial, moral equivocating, and deflecting we have all come to just love and cherish! Really gotta love his stance declaring the US does not recognizes human rights forgetting his country year after is in the top ten worst human religious rights abusers. God if people like him ran the world the best of the best will all of sudden become the worst of the worst simply because they don't follow the "perfect" Iranian model of civilization. God this just pisses me off!!!!