Western progressives eerily silent on Iran

As Iranians lose their lives in a wave of unprecedented pro-democracy protests, members of the country’s diaspora are criticizing what they call a “deafening silence” from Western governments and progressive groups who tout themselves as champions of equality and human rights.

“I think the issue is one that the left should support; I think it’s in fact tailormade for leftist support,” said Iranianborn human rights campaigner Kaveh Sharooz, a former candidate for the Liberal nomination in Richmond Hill, Ont.

Nevertheless, Sharooz said that with few exceptions, “major influential left-wing politicians and thinkers still have been largely silent on this.”

On his Twitter account he singled out Canadian activist Naomi Klein, U.K. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

For six days, cities across Iran have been roiled by a sudden explosion of anti-government protests that, in some cases, have sparked a deadly response from Iranian authorities.

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Nevertheless, foreign governments, including the European Union, have issued little more than calls for the Iranian government to guarantee their citizens’ right to protest. U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, for instance, issued a statement calling on “all concerned” to refrain from violence.

“I don’t expect anything from Russia or China, but I do expect more from European governments,” said Arsham Parsi, director of Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees, a Canadian charity devoted to LGBT rights in Iran.

Parsi added that he isn’t advocating for Western intervention, merely a strong statement in support of Iranian democracy.

Canada’s sole official statement on the issue came Tuesday and was three sentences long. It called on Iranian authorities to “uphold and respect democratic and human rights.”

Even that provoked a response from Iranian authorities, who accused Canada of adopting an “interventionist position.”

Trudeau’s Liberal government is working to restore diplomatic relations with Iran, which the Harper Conservatives severed in 2012 over the country’s support for terror and its human rights record. A senior official from Iran’s foreign ministry told the Iranian Mehr News Agency that the two sides have held five rounds of talks and another is planned for early in the new year.

“I have been sickened by the silence from those on the left who claim to be progressive,” said human rights activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam, whose family fled to Canada after the 1979 Iranian revolution. She is married to former Conservative foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay.

In a statement to the National Post, she added: “What the courageous, freedom-loving people of Iran need at this critically important moment is strong encouragement and clear definitive statements from democratic countries of their long-term support.”

The demonstrations are the largest example of Iranian civil unrest since the 2009 “Green Movement,” a popular uprising in response to the disputed re-election of then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Led by the country’s educated elite, the Green Movement merely advocated reforms to the existing system. These latest protests, however, have sprung up in poorer corners of the country believed to be bastions of pro-government support.

More surprising still, they have been explicitly calling for an end to the country’s theocratic regime.

In some of the most iconic images from the latest demonstrations, Iranian women took off their hijabs in defiance of the country’s 39-year-old law banning women from showing their hair in public.

“In the last 40 years we haven’t had anything similar to this,” said Parsi.

At least 20 people have been killed in violent clashes with government security forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. Although the Iranian government has claimed that violent force is only being used against lawbreaking “troublemakers,” videos circulated by protesters appear to show soldiers firing on unarmed demonstrators.

“There are reports right now of people disappearing in the night,” said Majed El Shafie, founder of One Free World International, a Toronto-based religious freedom group with contacts in five Iranian cities.

Shafie said he was “disgusted” with the restrained response from Western governments and contrasted it with the international support that flowed to protesters during the Arab Spring, the wave of 2010 demonstrations against authoritarian governments in the Middle East and North Africa.

“We are in a world where the bully can get away with a lot of things because they’re all scared about escalation with Iran,” he said.

There is some speculation that Westerners fear jeopardizing the 2015 nuclear pact negotiated under Barack Obama, which U.S. President Donald Trump has called the “worst deal” imaginable.

So far, the only full-throated government support of the protesters has come from Trump and Israel.

“The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime … The U.S. is watching!” wrote Trump on Tuesday as part of a barrage of tweets that also included snipes against former opponent Hillary Clinton and the “failing New York Times.”

Sharooz said that, absent any similar statements from foreign governments, Trump’s support essentially plays into the hands of Iranian authorities looking to cast the demonstrations as a foreign plot.

This has indeed been a common claim of Iranian authorities. In a Tuesday call to French President Emmanuel Macron, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blamed the demonstrations on Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, a dissident group with members in France that openly supports a violent overthrow of Iran’s leadership.

Said Sharooz: “All sorts of people who have been struggling for a long time are now painted into a corner where they suddenly have to side with Donald Trump, which is an uncomfortable position for anyone to be in.”