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United States Condemns Unjust Executions of Iranian Dissenters

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The Obama administration says Iran’s execution of two Iranians who were accused of being involved in protests following the country’s June 12, 2009, presidential election is “unjust” and marks a “low point” in the government’s crackdown against people’s peaceful exercise of their rights to free speech and free assembly.

Speaking to reporters January 28, White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said the United States “strongly condemns these unjust executions.”

According to press reports, Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour were executed by hanging January 28, the first reported executions of political dissidents since the post-election protests began.

“We see it as a low point in the Islamic Republic’s unjust and ruthless crackdown of peaceful dissent,” Burton said. “Murdering political prisoners who are exercising their universal rights will not bring the respect and legitimacy the Islamic Republic seeks. It will only serve to further isolate Iran’s government in the world and from its people.”

The State Department’s assistant secretary for public affairs, P.J. Crowley, said January 28 that it is “unclear that these individuals had anything to do with the turmoil surrounding the elections,” and described the executions as “another sign of the increasingly ruthless repression and attempts at intimidation” by the Iranian government.

Iranian authorities are sending “the wrong signals” to their people, Crowley said. “Iranian citizens have the same right that all citizens have to demonstrate peacefully, to participate in the political process.”

Although the Obama administration remains willing to engage with Iran’s government in hopes that the country will play a constructive role in the Middle East, it will also “continue to speak out on Iran regarding their relation with their people and what we see as serious human rights concerns and abuses.”

“We want to see Iran have a different kind of relationship with its own people,” Crowley said.

Speaking in London, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told Cable News Network January 28 that “the voices of protest, the voices of opposition, are going to continue to challenge this regime in Iran.”

The Iranian leadership has apparently failed its people as well as “the very principles that they claim to govern by,” Clinton said.

The resolution of Iran’s political crisis remains “an internal societal matter for Iranians to decide.” The outside world is not involved in the crisis, Clinton said. But the international community is actively concerned over the Iranian government’s nuclear activities and is discussing potential sanctions. Iran has continued to violate its international obligations on the matter, and has not formally responded to an October 2009 offer by China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany that would allow it to enrich its uranium in another country for use in its Tehran medical research reactor.

“Absent a nuclear program, we would still be expressing our regrets and our condemnation of their behavior toward their citizens, but we would not be looking for sanctions. We are looking for sanctions because their nuclear ambitions threaten the rest of the world,” Clinton said.

The United States and other countries are “beginning to share ideas” on the design and enforcement of sanctions that will be “tough and clearly aimed at the Iranian economy,” she said, adding that “it is very much our agenda to move forward.”

With little evidence that Iran is willing to engage over its nuclear program, the international community “does not have a choice,” she said. The United States remains open to pursuing a diplomatic track, but believes it is “imperative to change the calculus” of Iran’s leadership, and sanctions are “an appropriate way to proceed,” Clinton said.

“The time has come for the international community to say, ‘No, we cannot permit your continued pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is destabilizing, it is dangerous, and we’re going to take a stand against you,’” she said.

In the meantime, the U.S. Senate passed a bill that would require unilateral U.S. sanctions against Iran because of its continued nuclear activities. The measure, approved January 28, is similar to a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in December. It would restrict Iranian imports of refined petroleum products, broadly ban imports and exports between the United States and Iran with the exception of food and medicine, and require any assets in the United States from groups such as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to be frozen.

The House and Senate must reconcile their versions in a conference committee before a final bill can be submitted to both chambers for approval.