Confront Iran on brutality, not nukes

She was Iran's first female judge, has served time in the country's prisons for challenging the Islamic regime and, to the chagrin of its hardline rulers, became, in 2003, the only Iranian citizen to win a Nobel peace prize.

On the eve of the anniversary of Iran's disputed presidential election and the crushed "green revolution" that followed, Shirin Ebadi has attacked Western governments for wrongly fixating on Iran's nuclear ambitions, while remaining silent about the repression of those who challenge the regime peacefully in the quest for democratic freedoms.

The human rights lawyer warns that the Ahmadinejad Government is using more violent repression against its people than at any time in the 30 years since the Islamic revolution.

Twelve months after the remarkable events which, for a brief spell last June, looked sufficiently dramatic to topple not just Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's President, but to cause the Islamic revolution itself to unravel, the "green movement" is a much depleted, if not spent, force.

Executions, detentions, televised show trials, torture and reports of prison rapes have left many Iranians fearful and possibly drained of determination to keep the "green" drumbeat going.

However, Ebadi strongly rejects the suggestion that the democracy movement is defeated, insisting that it is the hardline regime which is being torn apart both by its own unpopularity and the internal struggles that its crackdown has provoked.

"The present violence is unheard of in the 30 years since the Islamic revolution. In the past, they used to save the violence for those who were anti the regime. Now, they are using it against those from within their own ranks," she said.

As evidence, she cites a recent attempt to prevent the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the 1979 revolution, from delivering an oration: "This is definitely the sign of an internal struggle. What the outcome of that struggle will be we cannot predict yet."

In the immediate term, she said the Government's vulnerability would mean an increase in executions, extreme jail terms for activists and other forms of violent repression.

Seeking perhaps to rally the spirits of those who last year endured a brutal militia crackdown after taking to the streets, the Nobel laureate - who has herself been forced into exile since last June - forecast the Iranian people would yet defy their leaders: "There is fire beneath the ashes. Anything can make this fire blow again."

But she condemned what she called the "unfortunate" obsession in the United States, Britain and other European countries with the nuclear dispute - to the exclusion of any action to defend the human rights of ordinary Iranians.

The UN Security Council this week adopted a fourth round of punitive sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme but Ebadi questioned the relevance of the measures, which are geared at stopping Iran acquiring more weapons.

"The Iranian Government has already dedicated enough of its budget to weapons and doesn't need to grow its stockpile any further," she said.

She did not go as far as some of her supporters, who are privately dismayed at the timing of the UN vote, believing it sends the wrong message from the international community to the people of Iran. But she said the nuclear question is "not at all important to the people of Iran".

"What matters to them is to have a job and to have freedom ... The reason why they demonstrate, even if they know they will be killed or arrested, is because of the lack of jobs and freedom."

Ebadi accused Western governments of failing to take steps to demonstrate their commitment to democratic values. But fear of losing business contracts in Iran meant they remained silent or colluded in the brutal clampdown.

She claimed that a satellite communications company, part-owned by the French state, had bowed to pressure from the Iranian regime to block transmission of two TV channels, BBC Persian and Voice of America - both valuable sources of uncensored information for Iranians. Nokia, the Finnish multinational, had also sold Iran technology that allows the regime to spy on people via their mobile phones.

She said European governments should stop issuing visas to prominent Iranian politicians and crack down on or blacklist companies that do business with Iran when their products or technology are used in the services of repression.

"The Iranian people have the right to ask themselves whether the French Government believes in freedom of expression or not. And if they they do, why don't they stop these kinds of transactions? ... All we ask of Western countries is that they don't support the Iranian Government in the repression."

Life in Iran a year after the green awakening has, on the surface, returned to a tense normality. But that is an illusion, Ebadi said. "What is clear is that the population remains extremely dissatisfied with the situation. They would pay any price for change."

She said some within the "green movement" would be satisfied with reform within the framework of the Islamic Republic. "Others think the problems lie within the very roots of the system... but what matters most is that they all agree the present situation cannot carry on."

She admitted it could take "years" for Iran to achieve democracy but said "the Government can keep the people silent for a while longer through weapons and repression, but this is not a long-term solution".

Ebadi boarded a plane out of Tehran in the aftermath of the election, which ignited the biggest outpouring of public protest since the 1979 revolution. As the panic-stricken regime reacted brutally, rounding up students, journalists, women's rights activists and even clergymen, she travelled abroad and has not been back since.

The Nobel laureate once discovered her own name on an execution list drawn up by members of the Iranian regime. "But this is not the reason why I don't go back to Iran. Whenever I feel that I'm more useful inside Iran, that I have the capacity to work there, I'll go back."

For the moment, she is focusing on raising awareness internationally. She launched a campaign in Paris organised by the International Federation of Human Rights to highlight the plight of 40 journalists, trade unionists and activists currently in jail.

Ebadi sees hope in the weakness of the regime. She realised last month, she said, how politically bruised it was when the corpses of five executed political prisoners were buried in secret, as the Government feared the funerals would spark a fresh wave of protests.

"A government that is scared by the dead bodies of their opponents is a very weak power," she said.

Iran's future, she said, would be determined by many factors, including the price of oil and the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Iran is a fire under the ashes. And nobody ever knows when the wind will blow the ashes away."

- INDEPENDENT