Posted by
Benyamin Solomon on Saturday, July 04, 2009 1:05:42 AM
By the European Jewish Press [EJP]
LONDON (EJP)---
Jewish students joined a protest by Iranian minority groups at Chatham
House, the eminent foreign affairs think tank, in central London last
week protesting the visit to the UK of former president Mohammed
Khatami.
In an email sent to various Jewish community
organisations, former Iranian resident Nousha Eshghipour, a college
tutor from Brighton, appealed to the Jewish community to “unite” and
join them to protest the visit of the former president, the most senior
Iranian leader to enter the UK since 1979.
She said: “It is
now a crucial time to unite. We need the Jewish community to
collaborate, to restore the rights of the Jewish community as well as
innocent Iranians from various religious backgrounds who are clearly
separate from the government.
Explaining that before the 1979
revolution Iran was home to some 80,000 Jews, she added: “I am Iranian,
however, I cannot justify or condone this regime’s opposition to
Judaism. Iran’s Jewish community, as well as other religious groups,
has endured much burden and suffering.”
Large protest
More
than 300 people attended the peaceful protest calling for former
president Khatami to be charged for human rights abuses and for an end
of Islamic rule in Iran.
One protestor said: “Khatami has
always been introduced to the world by western governments and media,
as the smiling and reformist face of the Islamic Republic but under his
regime, hundreds were executed, women had no rights and were sentenced
to death by stoning, thousands were arrested and demonstrations and
worker’s strikes were brutally crushed.”
A former member of
the Iranian Jewish community, who did not want to be named as he still
has family in Tehran, said: “It typifies what is wrong with the
generally mentality that someone who has and presided over a regime
that has oppressed and murdered is welcomed with such open arms.”
Ahwazi’s also demonstrate
Also
protesting the treatment of ethnic minorities in Iran, including the
ethnic cleansing they suffered under Khatami, were members of the
members of Ahwazi Arab minority who live in Khuzestan in present-day
Iran. Prior to its annexation by Iran in 1925, it was an autonomous,
and at times independent, territory inhabited entirely by indigenous
Ahwazi Arab tribes.
A spokesman for the British Ahwazi
Friendship Group, based in London, said: “It seems that the only Arabs
that ever deserve solidarity are the Palestinians, but the Ahwazis are
treated far worse, as shown in human development indicators.”
Speaking
about the decision by St Andrews University in Scotland to award
Khatami an honorary doctorate on Tuesday, he said: “The Ahwazi Arabs,
other ethnic and religious minorities, women, trade unionists and
students have paid a high price of the Islamic democracy. Meanwhile,
Khatami did nothing to curb the power of the mullahs.
“It is
an utter shame that St Andrews stoops so low and refuses to acknowledge
Khatami’s crimes against humanity. They are appeasing a criminal human
rights abuser.
“The worst thing is that the Liberal Democrat
leader Menzies Campbell, a man who claims to champion peace in the
Middle East, is awarding the degree in his capacity as chancellor of
the university. It is an act of complete hypocrisy on his part and
casts doubt on his suitability to lead a democratic party,” he added.
During his talk at Chatham House, Khatami did not mention Israel or the plight of the Palestinians.