Khatami advice to Nobel Laureate

[emad]

The UK's BBC News reports that:

Iran's President Mohammad Khatami has urged the country's first Nobel Peace Prize winner, human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, to use her award for the good of Iran and world peace.In his first comment since the award was announced last Friday, Mr Khatami said he hoped Mrs Ebadi would pay attention to the interests of the Islamic world and Iran and "not let her achievement be misused at all". At the same time, the president played down the significance of the award, saying it was "not very important" and was awarded on the basis of "totally political criteria".

Mrs Ebadi, 56, is a lawyer noted for promoting the rights of women and children by seeking changes in Iran's divorce and inheritance laws. She is the first Muslim woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On Friday, Mrs Ebadi called on the government in Tehran to free all political prisoners. She told a news conference that the most urgent issues for Iran were to deal with freedom of speech and the release of those imprisoned for expressing their opinions.

There was little initial coverage of the award in the conservative-dominated Iranian state media, and Mr Khatami's comments have come in response to a question by an Iranian reporter who wanted to know why he had not officially congratulated Mrs Ebadi.

The BBC's Jim Muir in Tehran says Mr Khatami's reaction is a clear reflection of one of the facts of Iranian political life - that outside patronage tends to backfire in the domestic arena, bringing accusations of disloyalty. Our correspondent says Mrs Ebadi's success has continued to stir controversy in Iran itself, with right-wingers portraying her as a product of the former regime of the Shah and the prize as an attempt to exert political pressure on the Islamic republic. He says reformist officials have generally welcomed the award, but with caution - and have come under attack for doing so.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3190536.stm


Apart from hardline Muslim clerics in Iran, other vociferous protests come from that former Polish president Lech Walesa, whose personal bout of sour grapes at the Nobel award to Mrs Ebadi was much quoted in the weekend press when he moaned that John Paul 2 'should have got it for his 25th anniversary'....

[mmm]

1. I think Khatami is a good man. A far far better man than Bush.

I, too, hope Mrs Ebadi works WITH Khatami to energize the people.
The people of Iran want true democracy - the young people especially.
Nurture that flame and the dream will come to fruition.
Invading Iran would be a horrible crime, setting all the people against the US and setting their fight for democracy back twenty years, maybe more

[Jack The Tab]

2. The political realities of Iran....

Katami has to straddle that very thin line constantly...

And all the now-middle-aged activists that brought about the islamic revolution there now realize what a mistake they made. Hopefully the youth of that country can effect the change the adults can't seem to make.