Shirin Ebadi in Lund University Hall

On the 29th of september, Iran’s first female judge and the Nobel Peace Prize laureate of 2003, Dr. Shirin Ebadi paid an honouring visit to Lund. As this year’s Anna Lindh lecturer Ebadi spoke at Lund University Hall on the topic “Barriers to the Advancement of Human Rights in the World and in Iran”. Ebadi began the lecture by dedicating her speech to Anna Lindh. She reminded the audience of Lindh’s deep commitment to human rights, which she always placed at the top of her agenda. During the lecture Ebadi highlighted the situation in the world and in Iran concluding that the only way forward in the struggle for equality and respect for human rights is through combining high ideals with realistic action.

For further reading: The Nobel committes Autobiography: Shirin Ebadi,  “Jag vet att folket segrar, men kan inte säga när” (Sydsvenska dagbladet),

Full-view of the lecture (Lund University)

In the beginning of the lecture a first barrier towards advancement of human rights was brought forward by Ebadi: the problem that some believe that human rights criteria are based on Western ideals and therefore aren’t compatible with countries with a different religion and tradition. Ebadi explained that most undemocratic Islamic countries subscribe to this type of reasoning. Since these countries strive to uphold a legitimate rule through religion rather than democratic elections they believe that religious laws such as Sharia should be more important than the opinion of the people. Ebadi means that for these governments the Islamic religion is only what the government interprets it to be without any account being taken to other possible interpretations. This creates a barrier for human rights since all reference to human rights violations is considered to be criticism against Islam itself. These governments force human rights defenders into silence by referring to them as blasphemers of the Islamic religion.

Another barrier highlighted by Ebadi was the fact that the Islamic republic of Iran endorsed the Islamic declaration of human rights discussed at an Islamic conference in Cairo in 1990. Most of the Islamic countries signed the declaration. In Ebadi’s opinion this fact doesn’t necessarily have to pose a problem. If the Islamic declaration was considered as a policy adopted by the Islamic countries to implement the Universal declaration of human rights it can be considered something good. However, if the endorsement of the Islamic document is used as a way to oppose the legitimacy of the Universal declaration of human rights it will have a very bad effect. If Islamic countries grant themselves the right to create their own independent interpretation of “Islamic” human rights the same right would have to be granted to every religion, resulting in so many different declarations that they would become useless. Instead Ebadi means that we need to begin with a set of principals which are acceptable to the whole world rather than just a certain group. Ebadi also pointed out that Islamic undemocratically organized governments aren’t the only governments that resort to these means - also governments whose underlining ideologies, such as communism, deny the existence of god are generally unwilling to accept and respect human rights. These governments maintain that human rights declarations are based on capitalist values and therefore call them incompatible with communist ideologies. Ebadi mentioned China and Cuba as examples of this stance, and condemned this as just as wrong as what Islamic undemocratic countries use to justify violations of human rights. The conclusion is that both belief and disbelief in god have been used against the people; therefore it’s not the religion per say that is to blame, but rather the people in power.

Another barrier to the advancement of human rights can, according to Ebadi, be connected to the weak performance of the United Nations, in particular its Human Rights Counsel. When the UN Charter was drafted it was the hope that most, if not all, governments were elected and approved by their citizens. The idea was also that the governments themselves would investigate any human rights violations against their people. Both these thoughts have however proven wrong time and again. Ebadi said: “In fact, how can we expect governments which systematically and repeatedly perpetrate human rights abuses to condemn other countries for the same acts? It is thus that the scale of human rights has lots its balance.” Ebadi continues this discussion by suggesting an increase in the number of NGO:s as the balance. NGO:s should help in the fight against human rights violations by participating in the meetings related to such violations and if necessary they should also participate in the voting process. Ebadi is convinced that It is time that we learn to trust the people and that we should create a new UN that is set up by the people in the countries and not the leaders.

Another problem brought forward by Ebadi is the focus held by the UN in the past years. The UN and other international organizations have focused on social and civil rights rather than economic rights which, according to Ebadi, is one of the reasons for the extended poverty in the world. As a solution to this problem Ebadi would like to see an international convention to combat poverty to be presented to the UN for adoption. The most important issue of such a convention would be to encourage national governments to cut their defence spending in order to allocate these resources towards improving public welfare. The convention should for example state that a country should not spend more on defense than on education. If any of the convention’s member states maintains its military spending on the same level and allows it to exceed the budget allocated for education and health that country should not be able to get subsidies of any kind. Furthermore, a country that can’t repay its debt should have it written of if they reduce their army to a pure police force whose only concern would be keeping internal order and focus on rebuilding and other values within the society. This way, smaller countries would be encouraged to purchase fewer weapons which would help reducing civil wars. Ebadi points out that she is aware that these ideals resemble a dream in our world but “the challenge for us today is to have ideals based on dreams yet act realistically”.

After the general presentation the discussion turned to Ebadi’s home country, Iran. This article will not present the full magnitude of this discussion. What was brought forward was however Iran’s response to the accusations made against the country in the past. Whenever Iran has been accused of breaking human rights the response has been denial with reference to their actions being in line with Islamic laws and traditions. According to Ebadi this is completely incorrect since Iran has claimed to be a defender of human rights on the international arena and they even applied to become a member of the UN Human Rights Committee. Furthermore, when other countries has brought forward accusations against Iran for violating Human Rights Iran has responded by calling these accusations interference of Iranian internal affairs. When Iran accuses other countries for violating Human rights it should hence be the same thing but this it not recognized by the Iranian government. Ebadi concluded with saying that the Declaration of Human Rights has no borders.

Ebadi highlighted other problems within the Islamic republic of Iran. For example the discrimination based on gender which is huge in Iran, the fact that a woman’s life is worth half of that of a man’s is but one consequence. Also the widespread religious discrimination which Ebadi described as “much larger than what we have time to highlight”. Another terrible fact is the executions of juveniles throughout the country. In fact Iran had the highest number of child executions in the world last year. In addition to this, problems with censorship and violations of both the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech are common in Iran.

Towards the end of the lecture Ebadi made her opposition towards military or economic sanctions towards Iran clear: “Despite the people’s numerous criticism of the government of the Islamic republic, I oppose any bomb or military attacks against Iran. We are also against economic sanctions. Because it is the people that will suffer the most from such measures, and the inflation caused by economic sanctions would lead to widespread poverty in Iran.” Furthermore Ebadi ended her speech with an inspiring conclusion directed at the Iranian people: “It is the task of each and every Iranian citizen to advance human rights and democracy. The people of Iran demonstrated there political maturity in the peaceful campaign following the presidential election. I’m confident that if people raise there demands together and in unison they [the government] will come to realise there is demands. Victory is not far. Let’s hope for that day.”

Ebadi has a very great advantage when describing the situation of human rights in the world and in Iran. The fact that she has long experience from within an Islamic country makes her a good representative of the compromise which needs to come about in order to secure the reinforcement of human rights all over the world. This compromise, I would say, consists of everybody endorsing the Universal declaration of human rights: whether its western countries incorporating it into their political systems or Islamic countries incorporating it with there political system based on religious laws. This, however, is far from a new realisation and perhaps what is more interesting to discuss is how the dreams Ebadi speaks of can be put into realistic action. How can violations against Human Rights, governmental corruption or warfare be overcome by realistic action? Perhaps the only way to fight the continuous violations of Human Rights is through a more direct and just as unfair and unrealistic actions as those of the corrupt governments themselves? What I’m saying is, should we consider fighting the violators of Human Rights with military interventions, or will this only lead to escalated violence? Whether we choose the path of negotiations and “realistic” actions or the path of “fighting fire with fire”, one thing is clear: we still have a long way to go when it comes to protecting Human Rights around the world.

EMMY HARLID