Ex-Iranian President's Speech on Faiths 'Troubling Irony', Says USCIRF Head
WASHINGTON - The new head of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has expressed deep concern about the upcoming speech by former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami at the National Cathedral – one of America’s “most significant moral symbols.”
In particular, USCIRF Chair Felice Gaer pointed out the irony of inviting Khatami to speak this Thursday on the role of the Abrahamic faiths in the peace process when, in his own country during his presidency, religious minorities faced persecution and ill-treatment.
“The Commission believes there is a troubling irony in inviting Mr. Khatami to speak on this topic,” she wrote in her letter to Rev. Canon John Peterson of the National Cathedral’s Center for Global Justice and Reconciliation. “In his own country, Mr. Khatami presided as President while religious minorities including Jews, Christians, Sunni and Sufi Muslims, Baha’is, dissident Shia Muslims, and others faces systematic harassment, discrimination, imprisonment, torture, and even execution based on their religious beliefs.”
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Gaer added that during Khatami’s term, Iranian officials persecuted reformers, students, labor activists and journalists for “insulting Islam” and publishing works considered deviant from Islamic standards.
The U.S. Department of State, with the recommendation by USCIRF, has designated Iran as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) since 1999 for “systematic, ongoing, and egregious” violations of religious freedom – a status Iran held during Khatami’s tenure as president. The USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan federal body responsible for monitoring violations of freedom of religion throughout the world.
According to Gaer, the Commission’s 2006 Annual Report and the State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report “conclusively demonstrate that Iran’s…religious freedom did not significantly improve during Mr. Khatami’s administration.”
The USCIRF head questioned if the former Iranian president would denounce and express regret for religious freedom offenses and if he plans to call upon Iranian clerics to “respect the universally guaranteed right to freedom of religion and belief,” as part of his call for a “dialogue of civilizations.”
Moreover, Gaer noted that the Cathedral could be “manipulated” to appear to be giving Iran the “moral high ground” in the current Iran-U.N. situation regarding weapons of mass destruction. Iran’s current president, Ahmoud Ahmadinejad, has urged unconditional “dialogue” which is the topic Khatami will address at the Cathedral.
“Dialogue and discussion require that more than one voice is heard,” emphasized Gaer. She questioned if “countervailing” voices would be present at the lecture and if the Cathedral would ensure that the former Iranian president be asked “pressing questions about cultural tolerance, dialogue, and respect for human rights” in his country.
“To be candid, it appears that the Cathedral is providing a public platform to an individual who was responsible for implementing and administering policies that resulted in the severe persecution of religious minorities as well as dissident voices within Iran's own Shiite community,” stated Gaer. “Chief among these victimized groups are the very Abrahamic faiths he will discuss in his address.”
Washington National Cathedral is the sixth-largest cathedral in the world and the second-largest in the United States. The Cathedral hosted the state funerals of American presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan and was where the nation grieved the victims of September 11.
“The Commission fears that Khatami's address, in its announced format, jeopardizes this important tradition and may ultimately undermine the Cathedral's critical national role,” she concluded.
“In the final analysis, it would be a tragic oversight for the former leader of Iran to be invited to give a lecture on these specific topics in such a prominent place of worship without being questioned openly and seriously on both the nature of diversity and the legacies of his own record on human rights and religious freedom.”
Khatami is the highest-ranking Iranian official to be granted a visa to the United States since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
