Manufacturing Dissent

Despite serving two terms as President, Khatami is a forlorn figure in Iranian politics, his policy of engagement with the West and economic reforms failed. It was due to this policy of appeasing the West that former President of Iran, was presented with an honorary doctorate in law from the University of St Andrews. In support of the award, the University of St Andrews Students’ Association said,

"While it would be easy to oppose Khatami's award on the basis of tensions which existed in Iran during his presidency, we believe Khatami himself predominantly adopted a brave stand to promote liberal values. This personal courage, combined with his subsequent work in building inter-faith dialogue and communication, coupled with his notable achievements as a scholar, make him a very suitable candidate for such an award."

The BBC reports a dozen or so demonstrators turned up to protest the conferment of the honorary degree, which the BBC, rather disingenuously, described as a mixed reaction. There are an estimated 130,000 Iranians living in the UK, and at least 20,000 who are declared opponents of the Islamic Republic of Iran, nearly all of whom left Iran whilst Khatami was president. So the protests, could be best described as notably insignificant. Hardly a mixed reception.

However this conferment has been pilloried in the British press; the Guardian goes so far as to publish the spurious allegations and anti-Iranian drivel of notorious xenophobe, Islamophobe and proven liar Peter Tatchell, who is incidentally, a known supporter of the genocidal religious cult Mujaheddin-e Khaliq (a proscribed terrorist organisation).

Tatchell quotes the claims made by Safa Einollahi and Ali Ebrahimi of rape and torture in Iran under Khatami by agents of the state. This unsustained claims have been dismissed by the Met Police, "we consider there are insufficient grounds to make an arrest and there is not sufficient basis for a criminal investigation'', the latter part of the statement means that there is no evidence that the crime took place.

Tatchell also tellingly refers to Khuzei Arabs as "Ahwazis", anyone who uses this term either is ignorant or supports British imperialism, for it is a British term and not common amongst Khuzei, whether Arab or otherwise. Tatchell of course would not know this as he has never been to Iran nor dopes he have any contacts within Iran. He suggests that the "Ahwazis" were ethnically cleansed under Khatami, which is nonsense. Most of the Khuzeis who were forcibly displaced in Iran are not of Arab descent, in any event they were not ethnically cleansed, they were forcibly displaced due environmental necessity.

Tatchell has a proven track record of lying about Iran. He claimed that Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni were executed for homosexuality citing ISNA as a source when they said no such thing. In fact, the two men were executed for a series of rapes of young boys in Mashad, the oldest victim, a 13 years old, gave evidence during their trial. When it was revealed that this was the case and Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the European Union and the United Nations all dismissed these false claims, Tatchell continued to maintain them and suggested on the OutRage Website, that the 13 year old victim had probably consented to have sex. The website was pulled off line shortly afterwards.