Members of the Iranian student dissident organization, SMCCDI, protested at a May 15th UCLA talk by Shirin Ebadi. According to their press release (no URL supplied):
Tens of Iranian activists protested, yesterday, against Shirin Ebadi’s presence at the UCLA and her controversial stands in line with the Islamic regime’s so-called “reformist” faction and foreign policy.
Protesters distributed templates and tracts while shouting slogans against Ebadi and in condemnation of the Islamic regime’s persistent rights abuses outside the conference room. In addition, several of them were able to introduced themselves in the closed door meeting and to shout slogans and questions to which an embarrassed and interrupted Ebadi did not respond. These questions were mainly focused on the evil nature of the Islamic regime and it’s repressive policies or asking from Ebadi to respond clearly if she’s rejecting the rights abuse in Iran.
Each time the security forces rushed to oust out the protesters and also those who deployed tissue banners denouncing the Islamic republic’s crimes. Several opponents were brutalized by young naive Iranians supporting Ebadi and who are blinded by her Iranian adjective. An Iranian woman activist was reported as agressed by Kazem Alamdari, one of the speech organizers who does frequent travel to Iran and who has obtained the authorization from the repressive Islamic regime to publish his books in Iran. The latter and his wife Nayere Tohidi, both UCLA professors, were in their younger age part of a Marxist guerilla group involved in several murders and which contributed to the victory of the Islamic revolution.
If a member of SMCCDI could supply me with a URL for the full press release, I would be happy to link to it.
Jeannie Fiona Macauley reports the information can be found here.
Try this URL; it is directly from the SMCCDI site.
http://www.daneshjoo.org/smccdinews/article/publish/article_4218.shtml
I’m really getting pissed people like that are in my country.
But it is UCLA.
Hey,
Unfortunately I did not go to that conference myself, but as a long-time UCLA student, I can tell you that there is in fact NO student group named SMCCDI.
While their conduct, if it actually happened, does seem to me to be a little bit misguided, I support people’s right to conscience and the right to express that. As such, I have worked with the main Iranian student group on campus, although I typically do not see eye-to-eye with them. I even formed my own Iranian student group, with a small, but significant membership. I also knew of a third club that was formed. My organization and the third soon dissipated as the core membership graduated.
However, this I can tell you: I have NEVER heard of this SMCCDI. If they were an organization on campus, I would have known. I was involved with a significant majority of campus organizations and subsequently knew of most, if not all of the other ones, including their leadership. Being as I am of Iranian descent, I certainly would have noticed an additional organization.
My suspicion is that this “organization” belonged rather to Santa Monica Community College, or SMC as 99% of its students and those in the community refer to it. My further suspicion is that this was thrown together at the last minute by a few aging dinosaurs of the Iranian-American community who live in Beverly Hills and still, 25 years later, refuse to acknowledge that not only did the revolution occur, but that some supported it, and while it is far from a great or good or even decent position, it is not going anywhere fast. These aging dinosaurs will occasionally rile up a few naive kids from SMC to do their bidding because as “upstanding members of the (Beverly Hills) community” they shouldn’t risk getting arrested…
I think they are misguided, and the organizers are lame, ineffectual, and juvenile because while it is easy to take a stand against the IR of Iran, and shout at it like spoiled children, it is far more self-exerting and far more self-less to ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. And that doesn’t mean doing lame things like shouting, or disrupting conversation. When one attempts to shout down discourse, one is acting in the fashion of the dictator. As G.Bush jr. said: “Things would be alot easier if we had a dictator–so long as I was the dictator.”
The IRR is here, and it’s here to stay for at least some time more. Shouting at it, and shouting down others we disagree with it is wrong. A civilized society allows for dissent, and it allows for a variety of opinions, viewpoints, and personalities. Reactionary-ism is a danger in it of itself. Forcing women to wear a hijab is just as wrong as forcing one not to wear it, as the Shah did. The opponents of the IRR are varied. Many, if not most, are rational, decent human beings who understand the dignity and value of their fellows. As in any situations, those that garner the headlines and the attention, are the spoiled apples. Many of those in opposition struggle and fight day in and day out for a day when their views will have acceptance, and yes some of them are in good-conscience “reformists.” How dare any sycophant call them names or devalue not only their perspective, but their ultimate humanity by shouting them down?
Would I prefer to live under the administration of the Adult-Children that professs such views as opposed to those who currently rule? Why ever would I care for that? While I’m on the matter, what is wrong with those who say ‘Let’s free Iran, by having the US BOMB it, then colonize it?!’ That’s my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins you’ll be bombing. And by the way, Iran may not be 100% free, but can you not think in shades of gray? It ain’t the 3rd reich there either, you know? I am definitely not thrilled with the state of affairs there, and I would certainly like things to change, but I would like things to get BETTER, not merely to change.
So please, cut the crap, start to think about the rational consequences of your words and deeds–as was the precept of the Zartosh religion (Zarathustrian, Zoroastian): Think on your words, your deeds, and your thoughts.
Fairwell to you all.
SMCCDI has a public office near Dallas Texas and one in Paris. It has never claimed to have offices at the UCLA bu has been able to organize protest rallies in front of this university and inside of its premises during Ebadi speech which over 200 Iranians and freedom activists participated.
Unfortunately the notorious bad Human Rights sitution in Iran does not allow us to have a public office inside Iran.
We’re hoping that the future overthrown of the tyrannical and terrorist Islamic regime will allow us to advocate publicly and without getting killed or tortured by the Islamist regime.
The person who has made the above post is in perfect line with demaguogues that tried to portray the Islamic regime as an Islamic Disneyland during the Clinton Administration.
They’re doomed to fail as millions of Iranians are looking for freedom and a secular regime.