Moral bankruptcy in Iran

Opinion: September 18, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad likes to boast about the superiority of Iranian moral values to those of the West.

So, a week before he traveled to the U.N. General Assembly, he sought to divert attention from Iran’s dismal human rights record by intervening to free Sarah Shourd, one of three American hikers who had been jailed for 13 months in Tehran. He claimed this was a gesture of Islamic compassion due to her health problems.

But his gesture rings hollow. Shourd’s two companions — her fiance, Shane Bauer, and friend Josh Fattal — remain in Evin Prison. Nor can Ahmadinejad’s gesture hide the horrors perpetrated on hundreds of Iranians imprisoned since rigged elections last year.

The three Americans were arrested while hiking in Iraq’s scenic north, near the unmarked border with Iran.

Until last weekend, no charges had been lodged against the three, and their interrogation stopped months ago. “They have been held as hostages” while the regime sought to get something for their release, said Iran expert Gary Sick.

When Ahmadinejad finally intervened on Shourd’s behalf, his political enemies in the Iranian judiciary at first canceled her release, and then imposed $500,000 “bail” — meaning ransom. Shourd was flown out on a jet belonging to the government of Oman, a country friendly to both the United States and Iran; the Omanis also may have put up the money.

Charges filed

But just before Shourd was freed, Iran charged the three hikers with spying. Let’s hope the Iranians understand that another show trial — of the two men — would be a huge blot on their moral pretensions and their country’s name.

Iran already embarrassed itself a few months ago with a televised show trial of onetime top officials jailed because they supported candidates who ran against Ahmadinejad. The accused, looking haggard, mumbled staged confessions in a spectacle reminiscent of the Stalin era at its worst.

More recently, a letter was smuggled out of Evin prison that came from prominent human rights activist Abdollah Momeni and was addressed to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. It described horrific torture. You can read the entire text at www.iranhumanrights.org, but it takes a strong stomach.

Momeni details savage beatings and near-suffocation, confinement for months in a coffin-like cell, having his head held in a toilet bowl full of feces, and threats of rape or imminent execution. He was finally forced into a false confession at a sham trial.

“By addressing this letter to Khamenei, Momeni has challenged leaders from Khamenei to Ahmadinejad” to investigate abuses, said Hadi Ghaemi, head of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. “Now they cannot say they were unaware what was happening in Iranian prisons,” Ghaemi said. “If there is no response, [it will be clear that] these systematic and inhumane methods ... are sanctioned by them.”

Of course, Iranian officials regularly deny that they torture prisoners or coerce confessions. But in this globalized world, they can’t keep their behavior secret. The world is watching.

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.