Headlines, Human Rights, Middle East & North Africa, North America

RIGHTS: U.S. Opens Door to Ebadi’s ‘Enemy’ Ideas

William Fisher

NEW YORK, Dec 20 2004 (IPS) - From Washington comes proof that high-profile individuals can sometimes force the Bush administration to reverse policies that violate human rights.

The person in question is Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian dissident who was the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Prize. This is the story of how she and her colleagues got the U.S. Treasury Department to stop seeing her book as “enemy” literature.

Ebadi was told she could not publish her memoirs in the United States because of regulations that prohibit “trading with the enemy.” The Trading With The Enemy Act (TWTE), passed in 1917, allows the president to bar transactions during times of war or national emergency.

Though the law has been amended to exempt publishers, the Treasury Department continued to rule it illegal “to enhance the value of anything created in Iran without permission,” including books.

The department suggested Ebadi apply for a special license. But instead, she and her agent joined a lawsuit filed a month earlier against Treasury by several U.S. organisations representing publishers, editors and translators.

For more than a year these groups had conducted fruitless negations with the department’s office of foreign assets control (OFAC), which administers the TWTE regulations that currently apply to countries against which Washington has sanctions – Iran, Sudan and Cuba.

Ebadi’s book is described as an effort to “help correct western stereotypes of Islam, especially the image of Muslim women as docile, forlorn creatures.”

According to the lawsuit, “At a time when the U.S. calls for citizens of other countries to follow the example of American democracy, preventing writers in certain countries from reaching the American public sends exactly the wrong message.”

“Writers in Iran, Cuba and Sudan cannot publish freely in their own countries. It is a tragic and dangerous irony that Americans may not freely publish the works of those writers here, either,” it continues.

The suit was filed by the PEN American Centre, the Association of American Publishers Professional and Scholarly Publishing division (AAP/PSP), the Association of American University Presses (AAUP), and Arcade Publishing. Arcade is the publisher of PEN’s ‘Anthology of Iranian Literature’. PEN is a writers’ advocacy group.

“We seek to overturn the regulations on what Americans can and cannot read in the United States,” Ebadi wrote in ‘The New York Times’ on Nov. 16.

“Despite federal laws that say that American trade embargoes may not restrict the free flow of information, the Treasury Department’s office of foreign assets control continues to regulate the import of books from Iran, Cuba and other countries,” she added.

“I could publish my memoir in the United States, but it would be illegal for an American literary agent, publisher, editor or translator to help me.”

Rule breakers are subject to prison sentences of up to 10 years or fines of up to one million dollars.

According to Ebadi, human rights, “including the freedom to read whatever one wishes, are universal values that transcend national boundaries. Therefore, just as I take on court cases in Tehran to defend others’ rights, so must I follow my conscience and take on a lawsuit in the United States to defend my own rights and the rights of Americans.”

The lawsuit asked the court to strike down OFAC regulations that require publishers, writers and translators to seek a license from the government to perform the routine services necessary to publish foreign literature in the United States.

Those rulings and the regulations they interpret mandate that U.S. citizens may not publish works not already published in embargoed countries, promote or market the work, nor provide vaguely defined “artistic or substantive alterations or enhancements” to it.

Ebadi and her colleagues charged those rules violate both the intention of Congress, articulated in the 1989 Berman Amendment, and the 1994 Free Trade in Ideas Act, which exempts transactions involving “information and informational materials” from embargoed countries, as well as the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The author of the Berman Amendment is Congressman Howard Berman, who has long advocated for the free flow of information from embargoed nations.

In March, Berman wrote the Treasury Department to criticize its “narrow and misguided interpretation of the law.” He added: “I fail to see how this serves the interests of the United States in any way, shape or form.”

Last week, the Treasury Department abruptly reversed its interpretation of the TWTE Act and largely exempted writers, publishers, editors, translators and literary agents from rules on the publication of information materials – including medical and scientific publications as well as books – from countries subject to U.S. trade embargoes.

Edward Davis, whose law firm represents the publishing organisations as well as PEN, called the Treasury Department’s decision “a very encouraging first step toward restoring the freedom of expression,” but cautioned, “the government has not yet undone all the restrictions imposed.”

“Professor Ebadi’s reputation and notoriety undoubtedly played a role in getting the government to change its rules,” he added in an interview.

There is an ironic twist to the story. At the same time Treasury was denying Ebadi the right to publish her book, the U.S. State Department – which is reportedly in charge of “winning the hearts and minds” of people who live under repressive, authoritarian regimes – was lauding her on its website as one of Iran’s “Voices Struggling To Be Heard.”

The website notes she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 “for her life-long campaign to protect vulnerable and persecuted groups within Iranian society.” It also quotes the citation from the Norwegian Nobel Committee: “As a lawyer, judge, lecturer, writer and activist, she has spoken out clearly and strongly in her country, Iran and far beyond.”

Ebadi, a former judge who was forced by the Iranian regime to step down from the bench, is now a law professor at the University of Tehran.

In her ‘New York Times’ op-ed, she wrote, “I cannot publish my memoir in Iran. The book would either be banned altogether or censored to such an extent that it would be rendered useless.”

“Publishing my book in the United States would involve risk and repercussions for me back in Iran. I believe, however, that the message of the book is so important that I will happily accept the risk and its possible consequences.”

The State Department website notes that in 2000, Ebadi “was arrested and accused of distributing a videotape that implicated prominent hard-line leaders of instigating attacks against advocates of reform. She received a suspended sentence and a professional ban. She was then detained after attending a conference in Berlin on the Iranian reform movement.”

It says she also provided legal representation for “highly politicised and sensitive cases,” such as the students killed during the 1999 Tehran University protests by vigilante groups operating under the influence of hard-line clerics.

Even President George W Bush lauds Ebadi. In Iran, he says on the website, “the demand for democracy is strong and broad as we saw when thousands gathered to welcome home Shirin Ebadi à The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy.”