SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2009
An Open Letter to the UN Secretary General
To: Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki Moon
From: Akbar Ganji, journalist and political dissident
August 12, 2009:
Dear Mr. Ban Ki Moon,
Evidence shows that in the Islamic Republic of Iran elections are not free, competitive or fair, and they never lead to a real transformation in the country’s
political structure. Several reasons exist for this:
Article 110 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran places most of the power in the hands of the Supreme Leader (rahbar) and institutions
that are directly under his control. Article 57 of the Constitution places all three branches of the government— namely the executive, legislative and the judicial
branches— “under the purview of the absolute [divine] rule and [divine] leadership” of the Supreme Leader. The people of Iran only have a say in voting for the
presidency, the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majles), and local councils. Even if the people’s representatives were to be elected on fair and competitive
grounds, they would be unable to bring about any real reforms in the affairs of the state. Non-elective institutions—such as the Guardian Council, the Exigency
Assembly, and the High Council of Cultural Revolution—often thwart and nullify the action of elected institutions.
In practice, the real power in Iran lies in the hands of the Supreme Leader, and it goes beyond the letter of the law as written in the Constitution. According to Article 98 of the Constitution of the Islamic
Republic of Iran, the Guardian Council has the authority to interpret the Constitution, and members of this Council are directly appointed by the Supreme Leader.
The Guardian Council holds that the power of the Supreme Leader is not limited by the letter of Constitution, rendering the powers of the Supreme Leader of
the Islamic Republic virtually limitless.
The recent Iranian elections were carried out under these same limiting circumstances. Moreover, political dissidents are excluded from the pool of candidates,
and a pre-condition for being considered as a candidate is to express their belief in and adherence to Islam, the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, and the
absolute authority of the Supreme Leader. In the latest parliamentary elections, the Council of Guardians disqualified some 2,000
potential candidates and excluded them from the candidates’ pool. Again, in the most recent presidential elections, the Council of Guardians disqualified 471
applicants for candidacy and only allowed four candidates, all of whom had been in top official positions in the Islamic Republic over the past three decades,
into the competition. During the Friday Prayer congregation on June 19, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic publicly divulged that the one candidate who
came closest to his own personal views was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the election held on June 12 2009, more than 80 percent of eligible voters participated under
these very restrictive and pre-screened conditions. Sadly, their free choice was rejected even in this latest election, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was announced as
the winner. Most Iranians concur that their vote has not been truthfully accounted for. All across the country, the people have come out and held peaceful rallies
to protest electoral violations that amount to a drastic violation of their right to shape their future. Sadly, the government of the Islamic Republic has faced
off these peaceful and civil protests harshly, and several innocent people, including students in the nation’s universities, have been barbarically assaulted by
the state police. Numerous political and civil activists have been imprisoned without due process and, at the same time, communication networks have been widely
disrupted and severe restrictions have been placed on the activities of reporters and international observers.
We, intellectuals, political activists, and defenders of democratic rights and liberties beseech you to heed the widespread protests of the Iranian people
and to take immediate and urgent action by:
1) Forming an international truth-finding commission to examine the electoral process, vote counting and the fraudulent manipulation of the people’s vote in
Iran;
2) Pressuring the government in Iran to annul fraudulent election results and hold democratic, competitive and fair elections under the auspices of the UN;
3) Pressuring the government of the Islamic Republic to release all those detained in the course of recent protests;
4) Pressuring the government of the Islamic Republic to free the media that have been banned in recent days and to recognize and respect the right of the people
to free expression of ideas and the nonviolent protesting the results of the recent elections;
5) Pressuring the government of the Islamic Republic to stop its harsh and barbaric treatment of the people of Iran;
6) Refuse to recognize Ahmadinejad’s illegitimate government that has staged an electoral coup, and curtailing any and all forms of cooperation with it from all
nations and international organizations.
Sincerely,
1. Akbar Ganji, journalist
2. Jürgen Habermas, J.W.Goethe Universitaet, Frankfurt
3. Noam Chomsky, MIT
4. Charles Taylor, McGill University
5. Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago
6. José Ramos-Horta, Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, 1996
7. Orhan Pamuk, Recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 2006
8. Nadine Gordimer, Recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1991
9. Mario Vargas Llosa, Novelist
10. Robert N. Bellah, UC-Berkeley
11. Seyla Benhabib, Yale University
12. Cornel West, Princeton University
13. Hilary Putnam, Harvard University
14. Benjamin Barber, Senior Fellow, Demos
15. Craig Calhoun, Social Science Research Council
16. Howard Zinn, Boston University
17. John Esposito, Georgetown University
18. Michael Walzer, Princeton University
19. Adam Michnik, essayist, Poland
20. Ahmed Rashid, journalist, Pakistan
21. Talal Asad, City University of New York
22. José Casanova, Georgetown University
23. Joel Rogers, UW-Madison
24. Todd Gitlin, Columbia University
25. Ira Katznelson, Columbia University
26. Nancy Fraser, New School University
27. Marshall Berman, City University of New York
28. Joshua Cohen, Stanford University
29. Philip Pettit, Princeton University
30. Jane Mansbridge, Harvard University
31. Richard J. Bernstein, New School University
32. Jean-François Julliard, Secretary General, Reporters Without Borders
33. Frank Cunningham, University of Toronto, FRSC
34. Nancy L. Rosenblum, Harvard University
35. Stanley Aronowitz, Graduate Center, City University of New York
36. Ashis Nandy, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, India
37. Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, University for Humanistics
38. David Held, London School of Economics
39. Steven Pinker, Harvard University
40. Jerome Kagan, Harvard University
41. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Harvard University
42. Adam Habib, University of Johannesburg
43. Gayatri Reddy, University of Illinois at Chicago
44. Ian Buruma, Bard College
45. Saskia Sassen, Columbia University
46. Ariel Dorfman, Duke University
47. Michael Bérubé, Pennsylvania State University
48. Steven Lukes, New York University
49. Mary H. Kaldor, London School of Economics
50. John Keane, University of Westminster
51. Mark Lilla, Columbia University
52. Stephen Lewis, McMaster University
53. Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania
54. Hent de Vries, Johns Hopkins University
55. Tom Farer, University of Denver
56. Veena Das, Johns Hopkins University
57. Corey Brettschneider, Brown University
58. Udo Schuklenk, Queen’s University
59. Lucas Swaine, Dartmouth College
60. Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Critic
61. Claus Offe, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin
62. Genevieve Fuji Johnson, Simon Fraser University
63. Alice Amsden, MIT
64. Thomas Keenan, Bard College
65. Hussein Banai, Brown University
66. Stephen Eric Bronner, Rutgers University
67. Mary Ann Tétreault, Trinity University
68. Rabbi Michael Lerner, Tikkun Magazine
69. Martin Shaw, University of Sussex
70. William R. Roff, Columbia University
71. Joanne Rappaport, Georgetown University
72. David Goldfischer, University of Denver
73. Arthur Danto, Columbia University
74. Nubar Hovsepian, Chapman University
75. Ann Elizabeth Mayer, University of Pennsylvania
76. Beverley Milton-Edwards, Queen’s University, Belfast
77. Andrew Arato, New School University
78. Anthony Chase, Occidental College
79. Dale Eickelman, Dartmouth College
80. Roger Hamburg, Indiana University
81. William Shepard, University of Canterbury
82. Delphine Abadie, University of Montreal
83. Laury Braco, University of Montreal
84. Kamran Matin, University of Sussex
85. Christian Nadeau, University of Montreal
86. Christine Straehle, University of Montreal
87. Veronica Ponce, Marianopolis College
88. Joseph Levine, University of Massachusetts
89. John Sanbonmatsu, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
90. Massimo Rosati, University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’
91. Hasan Jashari, SEE University
92. Mujeeb Khan, UC Berkeley
93. Margaret Scott, New York University
94. Joy Tong Kooi Chin, National University of Singapore
95. Susan Moeller, University of Maryland
96. Avideh Mayville, American University
97. Alistair M. Macleod, Queen’s University
98. Carol Gould, Temple University
99. Louise Antony, University of Massachusetts
100. Delfina Serrano, ILC, CCHS-High Council for Scientific Research, Madrid
101. Dr. Peter Admirand, The Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin
102. Laura Santos, University of Minho, Portugal
103. Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua, University of Ghana
104. Martin Blanchard, Université de Montréal
105. Patrick Turmel, Universite de Laval.
106. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Northwestern University
107. Chung Ryoa, University of Montreal
108. Awad Halabi, Wright State University
109. David Schweickart, Loyola University Chicago
110. Norman Birnbaum, Georgetown University
111. David Ingram, Loyola University
112. Fazal Khan, University of Georgia School of Law
113. Madhavi Sunder, University of California, Davis
114. Sophie-Jan Arrien, University of Laval
115. José Portela, Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Portugal
116. Lise Sedrez, California State University, Long Beach
117. Kurt Jacobs, University of Massachusetts, Boston
118. Dominic Martin, University of Montreal
119. Devdatt Dubhashi, Chalmers University of Technology
120. Charles Butterworth, University of Maryland
121. B. Chandrasekaran, Ohio State University
122. Sohrab Behdad, Denison University
123. Nissim Mannathukkaren, Dalhousie University
124. Henrik Jeldtoft Jensen, Imperial College London
125. Marilena di Bucchianico, London School of Economics
126. Joana Baguenier, University of Minho, Portugal
127. William A. Graham, Harvard University
128. Catherine Lu, McGill University
129. Mariano Torcal, Universidad Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona
130. Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University
131. Kathleen Howard Sutherland, Bowling Green State University
132. Jesse Lemisch, City University of New York
133. Stephen Zunes, University of San Francisco
134. Pauline Artemenko, University of Sorbonne
135. Michael Urban, University of California, Santa Cruz
137. Thomas Scanlon, Harvard University
138. Matthew Evangelista, Cornell University
139. Arien Mack, New School University
140. Brendan Simms, Cambridge University
141. Alan Bundy, University of Edinburgh
142. Jeroen Gunning, Aberystwyth University
143. Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University
144. Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence
145. Lewis Gropp, editor Qantara.de
146. Andrei Codrescu, Louisiana State University
147. Leslie Sklair, London School of Economics and Political Science
148. Simon Critchley, New School University
149. Dr. Byron Miller, University of Calgary
150. Dr. Liza McCoy, University of Calgary
151. Dr. Tom Langford, University of Calgary
152. Dr. Gillian Ranson, University of Calgary
153. Timur Kuran, Duke University
154. Astrid M. O’Brien, Fordham University
155. Susan Buck-Morss, Cornell University
156. Leslie Miller, University of Calgary
157. Martin Beck Matustík, Arizona State University
158. Claudio Lomnitz, Columbia University
159. Danny Postel, writer
160. Sandra Bartky, University of Illinois at Chicago
161. David Burrell, University of Notre Dame
162. Baber Johansen, Harvard University
163. Micheline Ishay, University of Denver
164. Ronald F. Thiemann, Harvard University
165. John Owens, University of Westminster
166. Ronald Beiner, University of Toronto
167. Andrew Norris, University of California, Santa Barbara
168. Jenny White, Boston University
169. Thomas McCarthy, Northwestern University
170. Ophelia Benson, Butterflies and Wheels
171. Richard Tapper, University of London
172. Michael Perry, Emory Law School
173. Volker Kaul, University of Salerno, Italy
174. Andrew Murphy, Rutgers University
175. Anne McClintock, University of Wisconsin, Madison
176. Rob Nixon, University of Wisconsin, Madison
177. Augustus Richard Norton, Boston University
178. Theresa M. Kelley, University of Wisconsin, Madison
179. Tejumola Olaniyan, University of Wisconsin, Madison
180. Todd Shepard, Johns Hopkins University
181. M. Steven Fish, University of California, Berkeley
182. Matthias Riedl, Central European University
183. Tine Stein, Social Science Research Center, Berlin
184. Rogers M. Smith, University of Pennsylvania
185. Alia Hogben, Canadian Council of Muslim Women
186. Libby Newman, University of Pittsburgh
187. Charles Perrow, Yale University
188. E. Valentine Daniel, Columbia University
189. Antonia Grunenberg, University of Oldenburg
190. Gayatri Reddy, University of Illinois at Chicago
191. Alexander Welsh, Yale University
192. Robert W. Mitchell, Eastern Kentucky University
193. Irwin Redlener, Columbia University
194. M. Norton Wise, University of California, Los Angeles
195. Stanley Rachman, University of British Columbia
196. Paul Ekman, Professor Emeritus, UCSF
197. Gary Giroux, Texas A&M University
198. Merle Goldman, Boston University
199. Michel Bonnin, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
200. Katayoun Chamany, New School University
201. Arlie Russell Hochschild, University of California, Berkeley
202. Robert Grant, University of Glasgow
203. John Dupré, University of Exeter
204. György Márkus, The University of Sydney
205. Maria R. Markus, University of New South Wales
206. Dana Villa, University of Notre Dame
207. Jean-Philippe Béja, CNRS-CERI Sciences-Po, Paris
208. Anne-Marie Roviello, Université Libre de Bruxelles
209. W. Richard Scott, Stanford University
210. Lionel Tiger, Rutgers University
211. Theodore M. Porter, University of California, Los Angeles
212. Radoslaw Rybkowski, Jagiellonian University
213. Jean-François Huchet, French Centre for Research on Contemporary China
214. Ruth Chang, Rutgers University
215. Jacek Debiec, New York University
216. Cathy Schneider, American University
217. Robert L. Park, University of Maryland
218. Peter Galison, Harvard University
219. Annabelle Lever, London School of Economics
220. Carlos Dews, John Cabot University
221. Benno Torgler, Queensland University of Technology
222. Nick Humphrey, London School of Economics
223. Katerina Naumenko, Moscow State Institute of International Relations
224. Etienne Tassin, University of Paris Diderot
225. Paul Jobin, University of Paris Diderot
226. Meredeth Turshen, Rutgers University
227. Martine Leibovici, University of Paris Diderot
228. Matthew Rabin, UC-Berkeley
229. Wendy Doniger, University of Chicago
230. Jeff McMahan, Rutgers University
231. Marcello Antosh, Rutgers University
232. Evan M. Daniel, New School for Social Research
233. Eva Hoffman, writer
234. Paul Nicholson, Parsons The New School for Design
235. Mark Dow, writer
236. Claudia Bedrick, Publisher, Enchanted Lion Books
237. Dina Khapaeva, Smolny College
238. Tammy Ha, The New School University
239. Peter Holslin, writer
240. Emily Bills, New School University
241. Katie Davis, Harvard University
242. Alexandra Chasin, Eugene Lang College
243. Heine A. Holmen, University of Oslo
244. Renata Salecl, University of Ljubljana
245. Mona Ali, Vassar College
246. Tiancheng Wang, Columbia University
247. Alexis Lycas, École Pratique des Hautes Études
248. Rui Liu, Hefei No. 6 High School, China
249. William Remley, New School for Social Research
250. Jesse Wozniak, University of Minnesota
251. Fatos Lubonja, writer and journalist
252. Anne Peretz, The Family Center
253. Michael Craig, China Rights Network
254. Holly M. Smith, Rutgers University
255. David Garland, New York University
256. Takuji Fujikawa, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science
257. Aizoh Kubo, Kyoto University
258. Samuel Scheffler, New York University
259. Richard Locke, MIT
260. Susanna Siegel, Harvard University
261. Seana Shiffrin, UCLA
262. Richard Moran, Harvard University
263. Larry Diamond, Stanford University
264. Charles Parsons, Harvard University
265. David Little, Harvard University
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About the Author
Akbar Ganji is one of Iran’s leading political dissidents and has received over a dozen human rights awards for his efforts. He was released from prison in 2006 and is the author most recently of The Road to Democracy in Iran, which lays out a strategy for a nonviolent transition to democracy in Iran.
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