U.S. Enriches Companies Defying Its Policy on Iran

Fernando Bizerra Jr./European Pressphoto Agency

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, center, in Brazil last fall. The nations agreed to share technical expertise on energy projects.

That includes nearly $15 billion paid to companies that defied American sanctions law by making large investments that helped Iran develop its vast oil and gas reserves.

For years, the United States has been pressing other nations to join its efforts to squeeze the Iranian economy, in hopes of reining in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Now, with the nuclear standoff hardening and Iran rebuffing American diplomatic outreach, the Obama administration is trying to win a tough new round of United Nations sanctions.

But a New York Times analysis of federal records, company reports and other documents shows that both the Obama and Bush administrations have sent mixed messages to the corporate world when it comes to doing business in Iran, rewarding companies whose commercial interests conflict with American security goals.

Many of those companies are enmeshed in the most vital elements of Iran’s economy. More than two-thirds of the government money went to companies doing business in Iran’s energy industry — a huge source of revenue for the Iranian government and a stronghold of the increasingly powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a primary focus of the Obama administration’s proposed sanctions because it oversees Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

Other companies are involved in auto manufacturing and distribution, another important sector of the Iranian economy with links to the Revolutionary Guards. One supplied container ship motors to IRISL, a government-owned shipping line that was subsequently blacklisted by the United States for concealing military cargo.

Beyond $102 billion in United States government contract payments since 2000 — to do everything from building military housing to providing platinum to the United States Mint — the companies and their subsidiaries have reaped a variety of benefits. They include nearly $4.5 billion in loans and loan guarantees from the Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that underwrites the export of American goods and services, and more than $500 million in grants for work that includes cancer research and the turning of agricultural byproducts into fuel.

In addition, oil and gas companies that have done business in Iran have over the years won lucrative drilling leases for close to 14 million acres of offshore and onshore federal land.

In recent months, a number of companies have decided to pull out of Iran, because of a combination of pressure by the United States and other Western governments, “terrorism free” divestment campaigns by shareholders and the difficulty of doing business with Iran’s government. And several oil and gas companies are holding off on new investment, waiting to see what shape new sanctions may assume.

The Obama administration points to that record, saying that it has successfully pressed allied governments and even reached out directly to corporate officials to dissuade investment in Iran, particularly in the energy industry. In addition, an American effort over many years to persuade banks to leave the country has isolated Iran from much of the international financial system, making it more difficult to do deals there.

“We are very aggressive, using a range of tools,” said Denis McDonough, chief of staff to the National Security Council.

The government can, and does, bar American companies from most types of trade with Iran, under a broad embargo that has been in place since the 1990s. But as The Times’s analysis illustrates, multiple administrations have struggled diplomatically, politically and practically to exert American authority over companies outside the embargo’s reach — foreign companies and the foreign subsidiaries of American ones.

Indeed, of the 74 companies The Times identified as doing business with both the United States government and Iran, 49 continue to do business there with no announced plans to leave.

One of the government’s most powerful tools, at least on paper, to influence the behavior of companies beyond the jurisdiction of the embargo is the Iran Sanctions Act, devised to punish foreign companies that invest more than $20 million in a given year to develop Iran’s oil and gas fields. But in the 14 years since the law was passed, the government has never enforced it, in part for fear of angering America’s allies.

That has given rise to situations like the one involving the South Korean engineering giant Daelim Industrial, which in 2007 won a $700 million contract to upgrade an Iranian oil refinery.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the deal appeared to violate the Iran Sanctions Act, meaning Daelim could have faced a range of punishments, including denial of federal contracts. That is because the law covers not only direct investments, such as the purchase of shares and deals that yield royalties, but also contracts similar to Daelim’s to manage oil and gas development projects.

But in 2009 the United States Army awarded the company a $111 million contract to build housing in a military base in South Korea. Just months later, Daelim, which disputes that its contracts violated the letter of the law, announced a new $600 million deal to help develop the South Pars gas field in Iran.

Now, though, frustration over Iran’s intransigence has spawned a growing, if still piecemeal, movement to more effectively use the power of the government purse to turn companies away from investing there.

Nineteen states — including New York, California and Florida — have rules that bar or discourage their pension funds from investing in companies that do certain types of business in Iran. Congress is considering legislation that would have the federal government follow suit, by mandating that companies that invest in Iran’s energy industry be denied federal contracts. The provision is modeled on an existing law dealing with war-torn Sudan.

Obama administration officials, while indicating that they were open to the idea, called it only one variable in a complex equation. Right now, the president’s priority is on breaking down Chinese resistance to the new United Nations sanctions, which apply across borders and are aimed squarely at entities that support Iran’s nuclear program.

But Representative Ron Klein, a Florida Democrat who wrote the contracting provision moving through Congress with the help of a lobbying group called United Against Nuclear Iran, said it offered a way forward with or without international agreement.

“We need to send a strong message to corporations that we’re not going to continue to allow them to economically enable the Iranian government to continue to do what they have been doing,” Mr. Klein said.

An Unused Tool

Sending a strong message was Congress’s intention when it passed the Iran Sanctions Act in 1996.

The law gives the president a menu of possible punishments he can choose to levy against offending companies. Not only do they risk losing federal contracts, but they can also be prevented from receiving Export-Import Bank loans, obtaining American bank loans over $10 million in a given year, exporting their goods to the United States, purchasing licensed American military technology and, in the case of financial firms, serving as a primary dealer in United States government bonds or as a repository for government funds.

Congress is now considering expanding its purview to a broader array of energy-related activities, including selling gasoline to Iran, which despite its vast oil and gas reserves has antiquated refineries that leave it heavily dependent on imports.

From the beginning, though, the law proved difficult to enforce.

European allies howled that it constituted an improper attempt to apply American law in other countries. Exercising an option to waive the law in the name of national security, the Clinton administration in 1998 declined to penalize the first violator — a consortium led by the French oil company TotalFina, now known as Total.

The administration also indicated that it would waive future penalties against European companies, winning in return tougher European export controls on technology that Iran could convert to military use.

Stuart E. Eizenstat, who as the deputy Treasury secretary handled those negotiations, said the law let Iran “exploit divisions between the U.S. and our European allies.”

Waiving it, though, was followed by additional investments in Iran — and more government largesse for the companies making them.

In 1999, for instance, Royal Dutch Shell signed an $800 million deal to develop two Iranian oil fields. Since then, Shell has won federal contract payments and grants totaling more than $11 billion, mostly for providing fuel to the American military, as well as $200 million in Export-Import loan guarantee and drilling rights to federal lands, records show.

Shell has a second Iranian development deal pending, but officials say they are awaiting the results of a feasibility study. In the meantime, the company continues to receive payments from Iran for its 1999 investment and sells gasoline and lubricants there.

Records show Shell is one of seven companies that challenged the Iran Sanctions Act and received federal benefits.

John R. Bolton, who dealt with Iran as an under secretary of state and United Nations ambassador in the Bush administration, said failing to enforce the law by punishing such companies both sent “a signal to the Iranians that we’re not serious” and undercut Washington’s credibility when it did threaten action.

Mr. Bolton recalled what happened in 2004 when he suggested to the Japanese ambassador that Japan’s state-controlled oil exploration company, Inpex, might be penalized for a $2 billion investment in the Azadegan field in Iran. “The Japanese ambassador said, ‘Well, that’s interesting. How come you’ve never sanctioned a European Union company?’ ” Mr. Bolton recounted.

Inpex was never penalized, though several years later it decided to reduce its stake in the Iranian project. And to Mr. Bolton’s chagrin, the Bush administration did not act on reports about other such investments, neither waiving the law nor penalizing violators.

Recently, after 50 lawmakers from both parties complained to President Obama about the lack of enforcement and sent him a list of companies that apparently violated the law, the State Department announced a preliminary investigation. Officials said that they were looking at 27 deals, and that while some appeared to have been “carefully constructed” to get around the letter of the law, they had identified a number of problematic cases and were focusing on companies still active in Iran.

Competing Interests

Among the companies on the list Congress sent to the State Department is the Brazilian state-controlled energy conglomerate Petrobras, which last year received a $2 billion Export-Import Bank loan to develop an oil reserve off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. The loan offers a case study in the competing interests officials must confront when it comes to the Iran Sanctions Act.

Despite repeated American entreaties, Petrobras had previously invested $100 million to explore Iran’s offshore oil prospects in the Persian Gulf.

But the Export-Import Bank loan could help create American jobs, since Petrobras would use the money to buy goods and services from American companies. Perhaps more important, it could help develop a source of oil outside the Middle East.

After The Times inquired about the loan, bank officials said that they asked for and received a letter of assurance from Petrobras that it had finished its work in Iran. A senior White House official, in a Nov. 13 e-mail message, said that while it was the administration’s policy to warn companies against such investments, “Brazil is an important U.S. trading partner and our discussions with them are ongoing.”

But if the administration hoped that the loan would bring Brazil in line with its objectives in Iran, it would soon prove mistaken.

On Nov. 23, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, visited Brazil, and the two countries agreed to share technical expertise on energy projects. Iranian officials said they might offer Petrobras additional incentives for further investment.

The visit infuriated American officials, who felt it undercut efforts to press Iran on its nuclear program while lending international legitimacy to the Iranian president. Brazil’s relationship with Iran has also complicated American maneuvering at the United Nations, where Brazil holds a rotating seat on the Security Council. Just last week, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, restated his opposition to the administration’s sanctions proposal, warning, “It is not prudent to push Iran against a wall.”

Carter Lawson, the Export-Import Bank’s deputy general counsel, acknowledged that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visit was “problematic for us, and it raised our antenna.” He said that since December the bank had been operating under a new budget rule requiring borrowers to certify that they had no continuing operations in Iran’s energy industry, and was carefully monitoring Petrobras’s activities.

In the meantime, Petrobras’s Tehran office remains open. And Diogo Almeida, the acting economic attaché at the Brazilian Embassy in Iran, said that while Petrobras was currently assessing how much it could invest in Iran, given the huge discovery off Rio de Janeiro, company officials were in active discussions with the Iranian government and were interested in pursuing new business.

Opportunities for Profit

For all the American rules and focus, there is still plenty of room for companies to profit in crucial areas of Iran’s economy without fear of reprisal or loss of United States government business.

Auto companies doing business in Iran, for instance, received $7.3 billion in federal contracts over the past 10 years. Among them was Mazda, whose cars in Iran are assembled by a company called the Bahman Group. A 45 percent share in Bahman is held by the Sepah Cooperative Foundation, a large investment fund linked to the Revolutionary Guards, according to Iranian news accounts and a 2009 RAND Corporation report prepared for the Defense Department.

A Mazda spokesman declined to comment, saying the company was unaware of the links.

Even companies based in the United States, including some of the biggest federal contractors, can invest in Iran through foreign subsidiaries run independently by non-Americans.

Honeywell, the aviation and aerospace company, has received nearly $13 billion in federal contracts since 2005. That year it acquired Universal Oil Products, whose British subsidiary is working on a project to expand gasoline production at the Arak refinery in Iran. Universal recently received a $25 million federal grant for a clean-energy project in Hawaii.

In a statement, Honeywell said it had told the State Department in January that while it was fulfilling its Arak contract, it would not undertake new projects in Iran.

Ingersoll Rand, another American company with foreign subsidiaries, says it is evaluating its “minor” business in Iran in light of the political climate. But for now, according to a spokesman, Paul Dickard, it continues to sell air-compression systems with a “wide variety of applications,” including in the oil and gas industries and in nuclear power plants.

Senator Byron L. Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, tried to close the foreign subsidiary loophole after a furor erupted in 2004 over Halliburton, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s old company, which had used a Cayman Islands subsidiary to sell oil-field services to Iran. But he said he was unable to overcome business opposition.

William A. Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, lobbied against Mr. Dorgan’s bill and has opposed other unilateral sanctions. He argues that their futility can be seen in the intransigence of the Iranian government and the way American oil companies have simply been replaced by foreign competitors. Moreover, many foreign companies with business interests in Iran are also large American employers; deny them federal contracts and other benefits, Mr. Reinsch said, “and it’s those workers who will pay the price.”

But Hans Sandberg, senior vice president of Atlas Copco, which is based in Sweden, offered a different perspective. Atlas Copco’s sales of mining and construction equipment to Iran are dwarfed by its American business, including military contracts. If forced to choose, he said: “It would be no problem. We wouldn’t trade with Iran.”

Dear Senator,

We at the Progressive American Iranian Committee (PAIC), a human rights organization, gratefully appreciate your effort in introducing resolution to punish Islamic regime’s officials responsible for human rights abuses against freedom and peace loving Iranian people.

Dear Senator, the Islamic Republic of Iran was the first government established with the Islamic ideology in the region, and since then Islamic extremism and terrorism have increased. These are threats to the security and well being of the Iranian people, the region and the world.

This regime, by owning all minerals and the major industries, as well as controlling about 80 percent of the Iran’s economy; is using the wealth of the country to buy domestic and international support  and repress the people by parallel security and police and paramilitary forces to maintain its grips on power.

The reform of the existing system of government with its current constitution is impossible, and this regime must be changed. The brave Iranian people are the most capable of changing the regime if given moral and diplomatic support, through economic and political sanctions. Sanctions that are tied to human rights violations.

Dear Senator, to the freedom loving Iranian people, the regime is the biggest problem and, never has the cause of freedom in Iran been more urgent. Human rights sanction legislation puts the United States, rightfully on the side of justice, liberty and the Iranian people.

Once again, we would like to take this opportunity and express our deepest gratitude for siding with justice. We believe, as you do, cutting the economic life blood of the regime in support of human rights of the Iranian people is the best strategic policy. We strongly request your continued moral support for the freedom loving people of Iran, in their quest to rid themselves of the tyranny of the Islamic Republic and to establish democracy in Iran.

With warmest wishes,

PAIC

2526 Mt. Vernon Rd. Suite B-220

Atlanta, GA. 30338

Honorable Senator Kaufman;
A  brave Iranian protester is in danger of being hanged!!!! His name is Yousef Rashidi.  He’s been charged  for holding a placard during a demonstration at Amir Kabir Polytechnic where he is a student and Ahmadinejad was giving a speech. The placard he was holding said:
The Fascist president, Polytechnic is not a place for you.
As a result he was arrested at his parent’s house in the city of Noshahr and has been jailed and sentenced to be hanged soon. He is on hunger strike, and needs your support. The Resolution #368 Imposing against IRI’s  r human rights violations, must be enacted now.  We must help and support this truly brave young student.  Please, this is
> urgent. Honorable senator, by condemning IRI and speaking of its heinous crimes you will bring it into the open for the world to know and will save this young man’s life.  Hopefully your voice will be heard and the judicial court in Iran will reverse their rulings.
God bless you in your service to humanity

Respectfully yours

Rose Atwood

PAIC’s Founding Member

PAIC is The Progressive American Iranian Committee
Founded in 2008, with Headquarters in Atlanta and a
Branch Office, in Vienna, Va.

The General Assembly this afternoon recognized the International Day of Nowruz, a spring festival of Persian origin, and moved back the dates of the next high-level dialogue on Financing for Development, as it continued its sixty-fourth session. According to the preamble of the resolution on the International Day (document A/64/L.30/Rev.2), Nowruz, which means new day, is celebrated on 21 March, the day of the vernal equinox, by more than 300 million people worldwide as the beginning of the new year. It has been celebrated for over 3,000 years in the Balkans, the Black Sea Basin, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and other regions. The Assembly called on Member States that celebrate the festival to study its history and traditions with a view to disseminating that knowledge among the international community and organizing annual commemoration events. Welcoming the inclusion of Nowruz into the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on 30 September 2009, the text notes the festival’s “affirmation of life in harmony with nature, the awareness of the inseparable link between constructive labour and natural cycles of renewal and the solicitous and respectful attitude towards natural sources of life”. The text was introduced by Azerbaijan’s representative, who said that, as a holiday celebrated in many parts of the world with themes important to all humanity, Nowruz encouraged intercultural dialogue and understanding. Speaking after the Assembly took action on the draft, the representative of Iran marked its adoption by quoting lines of the Persian poet Jalaluddin Rumi that expressed the holiday’s theme of rebirth “on our planet and in our souls”. In its decision on the follow-up to the outcome of the 2002 International Conference on Financing for Development and the 2008 Review Conference (as contained in document A/64/L.47), the Assembly changed the dates of the fourth high-level dialogue, which was to be held on 16 and 17 March 2010 at United Nations Headquarters, to 23 and 24 March 2010, in the same venue. The original dates were set by resolution 64/194 of 21 December 2009 Also this afternoon, the Assembly took note of the payment of dues by Kyrgyzstan, Paraguay, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Swaziland and Timor-Leste, through which they reduced their arrears below the amount specified in the United Nations Charter to be able to participate in votes and other Member State privileges.

Consideration of extending the terms of ad litem judges in the United Nations internal justice system, originally planned for this meeting, was postponed to a date to be announced.

The General Assembly will meet again at a time and place to be announced.

I felt a sense of deja vu as I watched televised scenes of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exhorting a huge crowd last week on the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution. Members of Iran’s “Green” opposition were hardly visible, leading many to conclude that the protest movement had been crushed.

Yet my mind flashed back to 1990, when I stood on a Moscow reviewing stand and watched Mikhail Gorbachev address a huge crowd in Red Square during May Day celebrations. Who could have imagined that, 20 months later, the Soviet government would cease to exist?

Could it be that, one or two years hence, Iran’s Islamic Republic will meet the same fate?

Of course, the differences between Iran and the then-fading Soviet Union are many, and I’ll discuss them. But first, let’s consider the similarities that make the comparison apt.

The huge crowd in Tehran’s Azadi Square included tens of thousands of government workers bused to the scene. Compulsory attendance was combined with a free lunch and a workers’ holiday, just as with the old May Day parades in Moscow — not exactly a good measure of the regime’s strength.

Members of the opposition, which arose after rigged presidential elections in June, were kept out of the square by a massive police presence, augmented by armed militia goons who blocked streets for miles and beat and arrested demonstrators. For good measure, the government also shut down the Internet.

“If people were allowed to freely assemble, there would have been crowds upward of 5 million in Tehran, and millions more in places like Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashad and Tabriz,” the Carnegie Endowment’s Karim Sadjadpour said. To repeat, you can’t judge the government’s popularity by the number of people in Azadi Square on Feb. 11 (or in Red Square in May 1990, where the military was everywhere).

Nor could you judge the Iranian government’s strength by Ahmadinejad’s boasts about Tehran’s military prowess, or by his inflated claims that Iran was already a “nuclear power” and had enriched uranium to 20 percent — a serious step toward the 90 percent enrichment required for weapons. (Iran insists, implausibly, that its enrichment program is only for energy purposes).

Independent nuclear experts said last week that Iran’s nuclear program had suffered serious technical setbacks, which could delay, though not halt, the program.

Moreover, Ahmadinejad never mentioned his serious economic problems at home. On his watch, inflation has soared and foreign investment has dropped under the pressure of international sanctions. Lower oil prices have revealed the fecklessness of his widespread use of food and fuel subsidies that he must now cut — which risks alienating large segments of the public. All this is reminiscent of the last days of the Soviet Union, whose economic problems brought on its demise.

But here’s where there are important differences between Iran and the Soviet Union. Gorbachev knew that, behind the showy facade at Red Square, the government was in economic trouble. He recognized that the educated elite was restless and no longer believed in the system. He tried to win them over with more political openness and media freedom — his famous program of glasnost. He chose compromise rather than the gun.

But Ahmadinejad seems oblivious to Iran’s economic crisis, perhaps because of his religious beliefs or because his military backers, the Revolutionary Guards, are raking in big bucks from the current system. Moreover, he and his benefactor, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appear to have ruled out any political compromise, fearful that it would signal weakness. Instead, they have resorted to mass arrests, torture, rape and even the hanging of political prisoners.

Yet they so far have held back from large-scale killings, apparently recognizing that their legitimacy is shaky; they know mass murder would further undermine it. This indicates cracks in the self-confidence of the government.

If Iran’s opposition can hold firm to its demands for human and civil rights, the government’s self-confidence may be shaken further, leading to more internal political splits. At that point, new possibilities will open up.

The Obama administration should continue to endorse and rally international support for Iranians’ human rights. And if the government continues to stonewall on its nuclear program, intensified sanctions targeting the country’s military and rulers will exacerbate its economic woes.

Sanctions won’t bring the government to its knees, nor is there any sign that Iran’s long-suffering workers are ready to openly join the opposition. Yet targeted sanctions will remind Iranians of the government’s failure to provide social and economic justice, and of Iran’s isolation. At some point, a critical mass of mullahs, politicians and even military will recognize, as the Greens have, that Iran deserves better than the staged show at Azadi Square.

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial- board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Readers may write to her at trubin@phillynews.com.

Please participate in a symbolic hunger strike to support the people of Iran. If it’s not possible for you to be with us three days, please try to attend on Sunday.

19-21 February, 2010

Kurdish Cultural Center

1798 Montreal Circle
Tucker, GA 30084-6816
(770) 493-199

Progressive American-Iranian Committee-PAIC

People For Iran

Khoee Foundation

The legislation — cosponsored by Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Susan Collins (R-ME), Robert Casey (D-PA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Ted Kaufman (D-DE), and David Vitter (R-LA) — requires the President to draw up and periodically update a list of names of Iranians who have perpetrated human rights abuses against their fellow Iranian citizens since the June 12, 2009, presidential election. Individuals on this list — which will be made publicly available — will then be subject to targeted sanctions, including a visa ban and financial restrictions. The sanctions regime will expire when the President can certify to Congress that Iran has taken tangible steps to end human rights abuses, including the release of all political prisoners.

“The rulers of Iran have no desire to meet their international responsibilities and every desire to use all the tools of violence and repression at their disposal to crush the peaceful aspirations of Iran’s citizens,” said Senator John McCain.  “The United States must lead an international effort to support the human rights of the Iranian people, and to put that effort at the center of our policy toward Iran.  Under this bill, Iranian human rights abusers would be completely cut off from the global reach of the U.S. financial system, and that would send a powerful signal to every country, company, and bank in the world that they should think twice about doing business with the oppressors of the Iranian people.”

“Just as the Iranian government is violating its responsibilities under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it is likewise in flagrant breach of multiple international agreements it has signed that require it to respect the human rights of its own citizens,” said Senator Lieberman.  “As the Iranian people risk their lives to demand the justice and freedom they deserve in the face of this lawless and oppressive regime, they should know that America is on their side.”

“Our country is at its strongest and its best when we ally ourselves with freedom,” said Senator Bayh. “When we stand on the side of freedom, we send a beacon of hope to those across the world and a message to radicalized Islamic youth that there is a better way than the despotism in Tehran that only retains its grip on power by imprisoning, beating, and killing its own civilians. That is a contrast that we will win.”

“Sanctioning those responsible for human rights violations in Iran is an essential element of the pressure track that must be urgently pursued,” said Senator Casey. “This important bill will send a strong message that our dispute is not with the Iranian people but with those in power who seek to repress them.”

“As Americans, it is our duty to send a strong signal that human rights violators will not be able to use the benefits of international recognition,” said Senator Gillibrand.  “The international community is rightfully alarmed watching the violence used against peaceful Iranian protestors. It is time for us in Congress to take a strong stance against the abuses of human rights by Iran’s regime and begin denying visas and access to our financial system.”

“The people taking to the streets in Iran are some of the most courageous in the world, and Congress will continue to reiterate its support for their right to have their voices heard,” said Senator Kaufman.  “We will not sit idly by as the government of Iran continues to deny its people essential freedoms and human rights.  And we will put the Iran – or any government which aims to silence its people – on notice that its behavior is unacceptable to the United States.”

FILE - Undated file image from a video that was widely circulated on the Internet via YouTube and Twitter Sunday, June 21, 2009 reportedly showing a badly injured girl identified as Neda. The unnamed people who captured on video and made public the shooting death of the Iranian protester have been chosen to receive a George Polk Award, the first time the journalism prize has honored work produced anonymously. (AP Photo, File) (Anonymous - AP)

The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 16, 2010; 3:00 AM

The situation of human rights in Iran will be reviewed at the 7^th session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United Nation Human Rights Council (UNHRC), between February 15 and 17, 2010.

Given the importance of this session, we, a network of international human rights organizations and civil society groups, will be holding a protest in front of the United Nations offices in Geneva on Monday February 15 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., in order to condemn the systematic violations of human rights in Iran and express solidarity with the democratic movement of our people in Iran.

In the interest of forming a united and effective front, we invite all human rights defenders and organizations to attend this gathering and endorse its demands.

We strongly urge the United Nation Human Rights Council:

1. to condemn state-sponsored violence, torture, rape and execution, and to request that the perpetrators of such heinous acts be brought to justice

2. to call for immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscious

3. to call for a total and complete end to all forms of discrimination against women

4. to call for freedom of association and assembly

5. to call for freedom of thought and expression

6. to call on Iran to consent to visits of all relevant Special Procedures mandate-holders for purposes of  inspecting the condition of prisons and prisoners in Iran

7. to push for the appointment of a Special Human Rights Rapporteur for Iran

8. to mandate Iran to respects its international human rights obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its sister Covenants, and to eliminate discrimination on grounds of religion, faith, ethnicity, gender and sexuality

To endorse this collective effort, please contact:

Europe: bashariranberlin@yahoo.com
North America: upriran2010@gmail.com

Signatories

1. Anti-Violence Campaign for Peace, International Health & Epidemiology Research Centre (USA)

2. Associarion dialogue et démocratie (France)

3. Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran (Montreal - Canada)

4. Canadian Voice of Women for Peace (Canada)

5. Comité indépendant contre la répression des citoyens iraniens

6. Cycling for Human Rights in Iran (Canada)

7. Deutsch-Iranisches Forum Aachen e.V (Germany)

8. Esmail Khoi foundation (USA)

9. Federation Europerse (Europe)

10. Forum for Human Rights and democracy in Iran (Sweden)

11. Iranisches Kulturzentrum Rahaward (ev) (AAchen-Germany)

12. Iranian Human Rights Activist Groups in EU and North America (International)

13. Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre (USA)

14. Iranian Progressive Youth (the Netherlands)

15. Iranian Queer Organization- IRQO (Canada)

16. Iranian Human Rights Society at York University (Canada)

17. Iranian Society for Human Rights - Northern California (USA) (Germany)

18. Komitees für Solidarität mit dem Protest des iranischen Volkes

19. Mournful Mothers of London (England)

20. Mütter für den Frieden - Dortmund Gemeinschaft für die Solidarität mit den trauernden Müttern im Iran (Germany)

21. Neda Peace and Freedom (Canada)

22. Organization for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in Iran (USA)

23. People for Iran (USA)

24. Progressive American-Iranian Committee (USA)

25. Rights and Democracy for Iran (Canada)

26. Shahrvand Publication (Canada)

27. Society for Human Rights and Democracy in Iran (Germany)

28. Society for Human Rights in Iran - Southern California (USA)

29. Solidarity with Iran (Canada)

30. Solidarity with Iranian Mothers (Belgium)

31. Solidarity with Iranian Mothers (Germany)

32. Society to Support Iranian People’s Movement for Freedom, Human Rights and Democracy (Germany)

33. Supporters of Mournful Mothers of Iran in Los Angeles (USA)

34. Supporters of Mournful Mothers of Iran in Vienna (Austria)

35. The European Students’ Union (Europe)

36. The Art and Culture Club (USA)

37. United4Iran (USA)

38. United 4 Iran( Köln-Bonn)

39. United 4 Iran (Bayer)

40. United 4 Iran (Düsseldorf)

41. United 4 A Free Iran (Heidelberg)

42. United 4 Iran (Germany)

Supported by Amnesty International, International Trade Union Confederation and European Students’ Union