Northwest Groups Discuss Afghan, Iranian and Turkish Rights Violations

by Elaine Kelley

Speakers at an International Human Rights Day event on the campus of Portland State University on Dec. 14 included Dr. Zaher Wahab of Afghanistan, a professor of education at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, and Dr. Darius Rejali of Iran, who is the chair of political science at Reed College in Portland.

“This is a very personal matter for many of us in this room,” Dr. Wahab told the audience. “I lost my brother, who was a lawyer turned journalist. He is now in a mass grave [in Afghanistan] and I am raising his children here.” He said his father was also a casualty of the civil war in Afghanistan and that his mother still experiences blackouts when reminded of the war.

Dr. Wahab briefly summarized the history of recent civil conflict in his homeland, where the government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani, which had been unable to exert effective authority over the country for years, was dislodged last September by the Taliban forces that now control two-thirds of the country.

According to the Amnesty International 1996 report, thousands of civilians have been killed in Afghanistan and thousands more wounded in indiscriminate attacks by the major warring factions, including the Taliban. Over 1,000 prisoners of conscience are being held in unofficial detention centers and scores have been killed in detention. Torture and ill treatment are widespread. Dr. Wahab described atrocities of war that have intensified in the past few years. “Intellectuals, writers, poets, artists, clergy, engineers, scientists, diplomats, civil servants, farmers and peasants have been butchered,” he said, adding that an estimated 100,000 Afghans have been maimed, one-third of the population has been displaced, and the economy and infrastructure completely destroyed in the fighting.

The Taliban has returned some semblance of law and order and has curbed factional fighting within the territory under its control but it is criticized by human rights organizations for its extreme Islamist and nationalistic agenda. Prior to seizing the capital city of Kabul in September, the Taliban threatened to bombard Kabul if President Rabbani’s forces did not surrender, and warned members of humanitarian groups and foreign nationals to leave Kabul. The Taliban has also banned women from working in public services and girls from going to school, but announced in November that girls and women would be allowed to resume their educations after “perfect security” in Kabul had been established.

Multinational energy corporations and the U.S. government are supportive of the Taliban because “they are viewed as peacemakers,” Dr. Wahab said. He called the Taliban a “mixed blessing,” because while it has been successful in stopping much of the bloody fighting and in cracking down on crime and corruption, it continues its own violent repression, targeting civilians for their supposed allegiance to other political groups.

He explained that Delta, Unical as well as Russian, Pakistani and Japanese oil and gas companies have signed agreements with the Turkmenistan government, immediately north of Afghanistan, which has the fourth largest gas reserve in the world. Agreements also have been signed with the Taliban, allowing these oil and gas giants to pump Turkmenistan gas and oil through western Afghanistan to Pakistan, from which it then will be shipped all over the world. The energy consortium Enron plans to be one of the builders of the pipeline.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, along with Amnesty International, the European Community, Asia Watch, the Council on Foreign Relations and the International High Commission for Refugees have called for cooperation in ending the war in Afghanistan through an immediate cease-fire, demilitarization, an arms embargo by neighboring and distant countries, the disarming of all factions, the building of a coalition government, non-intervention and democratic development.

Human Rights in Iran

Another speaker at the Portland State University event, sponsored by Amnesty International, the Iranian Human Rights Working Group, and the Portland State University Middle East Studies Center, among others, was Dr. Darius Rejali, the author of Torture and ModernitySelf, Society and State in Modern Iran.

“My talk is probably the darkest moment in the program,” Dr. Rejali said. He offered photographs to illustrate his discussion of methods of torture and execution in Iran, such as a dramatic public hanging of 100 alleged drug smugglers in 1991 carried out on a mobile gallows paraded through the streets of Tehran.

Dr. Rejali said, however, that capital punishment in Iran is rooted in the same penal practices as Western society. “There is nothing peculiar about Iranian society,” he asserted, explaining that although there has been a return to Islamic practices in Iran in this century, “these executions are not Islamic.” He said the capital crimes in Iran which are punishable by death include treason, understood broadly as an unwillingness to support the government, apostasy, murder, adultery, homosexuality, prostitution, rape of children and drug-related offenses.

Dr. Rejali said there are 700 to 800 public executions in Iran each year. This is the second highest number of public executions in the world, second only to China. He added that there is little American citizens or their congressional representatives can do about human rights violations in Iran, to which U.S. containment policies already have been applied.

Human Rights in Turkey

The speakers were followed by a video about human rights violations in Turkey produced by Amnesty International, whose 1996 report on human rights describes torture of political detainees, extrajudicial executions by security forces, and arbitrary killings by armed opposition groups. A state of emergency remains in effect in 10 provinces of southern Turkey where conflict between government forces and armed members of the secessionist Kurdish Workers’ Party resulted in 2,000 deaths in 1995. Following the video, Amnesty International representatives invited participants to join their letter-writing campaigns and petitions on behalf of political prisoners, and copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were distributed.

The International Human Rights Day event concluded with the lighting of a candle in remembrance of victims around the world and with live Turkish folk music by the Seattle group, Yenises(New Voice), which performed traditional and modern compositions and sang songs in both Turkish and Greek about Turkey, Bosnia and Palestine.

Cavalcade for Mideast Peace

About 200 Jews, Christians and Muslims from Washington and Oregon gathered on New Year’s morning in Portland’s Neveh Shalom Synogogue for the annual Cavalcade for Peace, sponsored by the Oregon Chapter of the Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East (ICPME). The event, followed by similar activities at a local mosque and church, was offically opened by Rabbi Daniel Isaak, who relayed to the group initial New Year’s Day news reports of the Israeli soldier who opened fire on Palestinians in Hebron.

Bettie Mitchell, founder of Good Samaritan Ministries, which started a drug and alcohol treatment center in East Jerusalem and sponsors counseling and addiction programs in many countries around the world, presented the Christian message at the Congregation Neveh Shalom Synogogue.

Mitchell recently returned from travels in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone, meeting with her program directors and visiting refugee camps and Christian and Muslim leaders. She shared stories of two interfaith events that occurred during her trip, one when Muslim and Christian leaders agreed to work together to provide training for counselors working in a trauma and loss program, and another in Pakistan where Christian pastors and Muslim leaders prayed together over land purchased by Good Samaritan Ministries to build another counseling training center.

Rabbi Daniel Isaak of Congregation Neveh Shalom presented the Jewish message before an audience filling Portland’s Rizwan Mosque.

Rabbi Isaak confided that he had been wondering what he could possibly say in a mosque before a group of Jews, Christians and Muslims and that he had decided on a reading from a book which was given to him at the Givat Haviva Kibbutz in Israel. The book, entitled Healing, is a compilation by author Mohammed Ali of wisdom writings by ordinary people. The reading the rabbi selected was by a woman named Agnes Elizabeth, who wrote:

“Whenever someone speaks with prejudice against a group—Catholics, Jews, Negroes, Italians—someone else usually comes up with a classic line of defense. Look at Einstein! Look at Carter! Look at Toscanini! So, of course, Catholics, Jews, Negroes, Italians must be all right. These defenders mean well. Yet, what a minority group wants is not the right to have geniuses among them, but the right to have fools and scoundrels, without being condemned as a group.”

Rabbi Isaak concluded his message, saying, “In the Middle East, we do not lack our fools or scoundrels. We’re loaded with them…There are terrorists of all kinds. There are soldiers who attempt to make world history by wreaking havoc on groups of people. They are not only fools. They are anonymous individuals who all of a sudden come to the center of history from the pain and suffering they inflict on others. And often these fools and scoundrels are the leaders of the people and we unfortunately have to endure fools and scoundrels on the way to peace. We must continue the pressure to continue, not to give up.”

The final speaker for the Cavalcade was Dr. Nohad Toulan of Egypt, dean of the School of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University and the inspiration behind Portland State’s new Islamic Studies Program. Dr. Toulan, a Muslim, spoke from the pulpit of the First Christian Church in Portland.

“We’ve come a long way—Jews, Christians, Muslims—to this holy house,” he began. “We’ve come a long way from the days of hatred, suspicion, mistrust and, above all, misunderstanding.”

Dr. Toulan told of his first days in the United States in 1957 when he was a student at Berkeley. He said he spoke little English then, and that a fellow student helped him find his way around the library and to survive in a completely alien culture. He learned two weeks later that the student was a Jew.

Dr. Toulan added that his wife is Catholic. “We’ve survived 53 years and have learned how to respect each other’s beliefs,” he said.

Al-Andalus Performs at Reed

Al-Andalus, one of Portland’s most diverse multicultural music and dance groups, performed its latest show, “Chiaroscura: Light and Shadow” in the Reed College chapel Dec. 13 and 14.

The international troupe is headed by Tarik and Julia Banzi, who describe Al-Andalus as reflecting “a place and time where Jews, Muslims and Christians lived together in peace for a cultural flourishing.” It was a unique moment in history “where three worlds met.” Tarik Banzi is a native of Tetuan, Morocco. He grew up in a Sufi Muslim family and was immersed in the Andalusian tradition. He has collaborated with Spain’s finest jazz and flamenco artists.

Since forming in 1989, Al-Andalus has featured the music, dance and poetry of Arabic, Persian, Sephardic, North African, Spanish, Latino and Indian cultures.

The program at Reed featured an ancient instrument, the Ney, found in Egyptian tombs and Mesopotamian excavations, and an ancient prayer for world peace sung in Sanskrit. In bright traditional costumes, Al-Andalus dancers performed an early classical Arabic dance called the muashshah and another called soleares (solitude), often referred to as the mother of flamenco.

“Illuminations” is Al-Andalus’ most recent recording on CD. It is available for $15 from Al-Andalus, PO Box 82816, Portland, OR 97202.