Reforms Will Grant Nationality to Children of Iranian Women

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Opinion

Rothna Begum is Senior Researcher, Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch

GENEVA, Oct 7 2019 (IPS) – After more than a decade of women’s rights activism, Iran’s Guardian Council has finally approved an amendment that would grant Iranian citizenship to the children of Iranian women married to foreign men.

The Guardian Council was the last body needed to approve this long overdue reform to Iran’s discriminatory citizenship law.

Previously, Iran’s civil code granted children and spouses of Iranian men citizenship automatically, while children born in Iran to Iranian women and foreign fathers must live in Iran at least until they are 19 before they can apply.

It is unclear how many children in Iran have Iranian mothers and foreign fathers. However, the issue has come to prominence in recent years because of tens of thousands of registered and unregistered marriages between Iranian women and Afghan men whose children are unable to obtain citizenship on an equal basis.

Rothna Begum

Research in other countries has shown that such discrimination can harm children’s access to education, health care, housing, and employment when they become adults.

The latest attempt to reform the law was inspired by Maryam Mirzakhani, a world-renowned Iranian mathematician and Fields Medal recipient who passed away from cancer in 2017. Because her husband is not Iranian, her daughter cannot obtain Iranian nationality.

In May, Iran’s Parliament finally adopted the proposed reform, but it went back and forth from the Guardian Council, a body of 12 Islamic jurists, to determine whether it is in accordance with Iran’s Constitution and Sharia (Islamic law). They approved the amendment last week.

While this is a long-awaited victory for Iranian women, the newly-amended law does not equalize access to citizenship completely. Iranian women must apply for nationality for their children, while children of Iranian men are granted nationality automatically.

Children who turn 18 can apply for nationality themselves. A security check is required in both cases.

Most concerning is that that the amended law requires the Intelligence Ministry or the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to certify that there is no “security problem” before approving citizenship in these specific applications.

This vaguely defined provision can be used to arbitrarily disqualify applicants if they or their parents are seen as critical of the government, particularly in eastern and western border areas where cross-border marriages are more common and where authorities keep a tight grip over peaceful activism.

In a matter of weeks, Iran’s newly-amended law will finally see children of Iranian women able to apply for the same benefits that children of Iranian men have.

But Iran should remove the remaining obstacles to ensure that children of Iranian citizens, whether men or women, are granted citizenship on an equal basis. They are all, after all, Iranian children.

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Watchdog Pushes U.S. to Publish ‘Duty to Warn’ Khashoggi Files

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Press Freedom

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) seeks disclosure of files under the U.S. intelligence community’s “duty to warn” obligations, which demand officials alert folks in imminent danger. The CPJ wants to know if they knew about an assassination plot against Jamal Khashoggi. Photo by Sam McGhee on Unsplash

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 2019 (IPS) – A media watchdog has asked United States intelligence agencies to reveal whether they knew about an assassination plot against Jamal Khashoggi and failed to warn the Saudi journalist he was in mortal danger.

A legal brief, filed in a Washington DC district court by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), comes almost exactly one year after a Saudi hit squad butchered the renegade writer inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

CPJ’s advocacy manager Michael DeDora told IPS that his lawsuit against the U.S. government “asks a simple question: did the intelligence community know of yet fail to warn Jamal Khashoggi of threats to his life?”

Khashoggi, a U.S.-based Washington Post columnist, who was once a royal Saudi insider and had grown critical of the regime, was reportedly lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in an elaborate and brutal plot to silence him.

Khashoggi was allegedly killed, dismembered and removed from the building; his remains were never found. The CIA reportedly assessed that crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, known as MBS, had ordered the operation.

The CPJ seeks disclosure of files under the U.S. intelligence community’s “duty to warn” obligations, which demand officials alert folks in imminent danger. The brief, filed Thursday, follows the Trump administration’s rejection of a previous CPJ disclosure request.

“Nearly one year after Khashoggi’s murder, disclosure of these documents would provide transparency and help efforts to secure accountability,” DeDora told IPS in an email.

“But this lawsuit has broader implications: journalists around the world should have the security of knowing that the U.S. will not ignore threats to their lives.” 

Khashoggi’s assassination sparked global outrage, blighted MBS’ global standing and undercut his ambitions to improve the kingdom’s poor human rights record and diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons. 

Saudi officials, who initially said Khashoggi had left the consulate unharmed, now say he was killed in a rogue operation that did not involve the prince. A domestic Saudi trial of 11 suspects is widely viewed as a sham.

Speaking with IPS among a small group of journalists in New York this month, Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s former fiancée, explained how she was saddened by the lack of global pressure on Riyadh to come clean about the affair.

MBS has not visited Europe or the U.S. since the murder. While the prince was briefly shunned by foreign leaders, Riyadh’s long-standing diplomatic support from the U.S., Britain and others has largely resumed.

“This silence and inertia created huge disappointment on my side,” said Cengiz. 

“Countries could have demonstrated a more honourable attitude instead of remaining silent, particularly the United Nations, the European Union and the five members of the U.N. Security Council.”

Cengiz was joined at an event on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly by Agnes Callamard, the U.N. rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions who investigated the killing and concluded it was a “deliberate, premeditated execution,” and called for MBS and other officials to be probed.

Callamard, a French academic, said she knew that achieving justice for Khashoggi’s murder would be an uphill struggle, given Riyadh’s deep pockets, clout in the world energy markets and powerful friends in Washington, London and elsewhere.

“This single year [since Khashoggi’s death] is just the first phase in our journey for accountability and justice. And that means that it will demand and deserve patience, resilience, and time,” said Callamard.

“Early on, I could see that justice for Jamal Khashoggi would have to be found beyond the usual path and beyond our usual understanding of accountability.”

Callamard urged the CIA to publish its files, while also calling for an FBI investigation and a public inquest in Turkey. Meanwhile, a draft U.S. law on human rights and accountability, if enacted, would unmask and sanction the culprits and send “ripple effects” towards accountability around the world.

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World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates Calls for Decisive Action, With No Time to Waste

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Nobel Peace Laureate and Former President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos, opens the summit with other Laureates onstage (David Dickstein/Prose & Comms Inc.)

MERIDA, Mexico, Sep 23 2019 (IPS) – In a world of increasing fragility and declining resources, can the world foster peace? With a looming climate crisis, is war inevitable? Will nuclear war be the final result? Are women the ultimate peace builders? How do we train and engage youth to promote peace?

These are some of the questions posed during last week’s three-day World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Merida, Mexico which brought together 1,200 youth and 30 Nobel Peace Laureates — individual and organizations — Juan Manuel Santos, Former President of Colombia; F.W. De Klerk, former President of South Africa; Lord David Trimble, Northern Ireland; and Lech Walesa, former President of Poland.

Women continue to claim a larger seat at the Nobel Peace table. In attendance were Rigoberta Menchu Tum for her work promoting the rights of indigenous peoples; Jody Williams, awarded for her work to eradicate landmines; Shirin Ebadi, for the struggle for women and children’s rights; Tawakkol Karman of Yemen; and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia.

A few key takeaways:
Former President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for work with FARC to negotiate peace and end a brutal civil war, noted positive developments at home, but said some segments are taking steps backwards.

However, he remained steadfast in his commitment to peace: “For each terrorist blinded by hate, there are millions of youth that wish to preserve it. We are not here to say everything is fine, but we are here to leave our mark for peace.”

Discussing the social and economic dimensions of peace, Nobel Laureate Jody Williams railed on the world’s grotesque amounts of income disparity, and called for a total restructuring of the world’s socioeconomic systems.

While many citizens move to massive cities — megalopolises — to access employment, education and health care, they end up encountering racism. “How do we move forward on the common good?” she asked, noting that in America alone, 57 percent of the US disposable budget is spent on the military and weapons, while only 6 percent goes to health and education.

Nobel Laureate Lord David Trimble of Northern Ireland expressed concern over several regions in the world where conflicts continue, such as the Mideast, where there are proxy wars, as well as Iran’s moves to become a hegemonic state.

Photographic reproduction of the Nobel Peace Medal. Credit: UN Photo/John Isaac

There are dangers in the South China sea, and threats of a US-China trade war – all of it having a ripple effect, with a potential to greatly impact business and other activities.

Things are getting worse on the democracy front, according to Trimble. “It is not going as well as we would like,” he said, referring to the elections last week in Russia, where the state coerced and manufactured results, producing outcomes that were presented as democratic, but were far from it.

Highlighting the danger of technology controlled in the hands of a few mega corporations, Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarti called for democratization of tech, and added that, the world has globalized everything, but that it needed to “globalize the compassion that exists in all of us.”

Bernice King, CEO of the King Center, and the youngest daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, challenged all those who came to the summit. “ All of you have a passion to see positive change in our world. We all want peace but it has to be intentional on a daily basis,” she said. Her practical advice? Peace builders need to find an accountability partner to support them when frustrated or depressed.

King offered a message of hope: just like her father: “The only way our world is going to change, is that we have it in our hearts to be love, compassion, strength, nurturing and kindness,” she said, adding that Martin Luther King said that the children of darkness were much more determined than the children of light.

In a panel on nuclear disarmament, Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, and UN Representative of the Permanent Secretariat of the World Summits of Nobel Peace Laureates, posed the question: “Is it legal to annihilate the future?” Because with the power of today’s nuclear weapons, they are a quick end,” he said.

Humanity has come very close to another nuclear war but has been unbelievably lucky, according to Dr. Ira Helfand, co-chair of the Physician’s for Social Responsibility’s nuclear weapons abolition committee.

“Sooner or later our luck will run out. It is no longer a question of when there will be a nuclear war, not if there will be one,” he said, adding that youth today did not understand the enormity of the threat – greater in power and numbers. Put simply, today’s nuclear weapons can annihilate the planet in short order.

In a nod to youth’s achievements, Mohamad Al Jounde was awarded the Turner Social Change Prize, and local student Saskia Niño de Rivera was given the Leave Your Mark for Peace Award.

During closing ceremonies, delegates stated that human rights are non-negotiable. The final document, the Merida Declaration states that: “As long as basic freedoms are violated and gross corruption, violence, extreme poverty, inequality, racism, modern-day slavery and trafficking of persons, discrimination, and discrimination phobias exist, there can be no true peace. We proclaim that true peace is inseparable from the achievement of true justice.”

To learn more and watch archived panel discussions, please visit the Facebook group at World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. Also, The World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.

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NYC Library Ditches Controversial Saudi Royal MBS’ Event

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Human Rights

Protestors rallied outside a library building in Manhattan on Wednesday, carrying placards about Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen and referencing the “bone saw” that was reportedly used to dismember Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent critic of Saudi prince Mohammad bin Salman. Credit: James Reinl/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 19 2019 (IPS) – A New York library appeared to bow to pressure this week when it canceled an event that was being co-hosted by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, who is accused of a range of human rights abuses.

On Wednesday, the New York Public Library (NYPL) said it was scrapping the so-called Misk-OSGEY Youth Forum, a workshop on Sept. 23 that was being co-hosted by bin Salman’s Misk Foundation and U.N. youth envoy Jayathma Wickramanayake. 

The event had been blasted by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other campaign groups, who said it served to whitewash bin Salman’s reputation after the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October last year — reportedly on the crown prince’s orders. 

Evan Chesler, chairman of the NYPL board, said that dropping the workshop was the “appropriate thing to do” after weeks of protests and an online petition that had garnered more than 7,000 signatures.

In a statement, the library said it had cancelled the “space rental” amid “concerns about possible disruption to library operations as well as the safety of our patrons” amid “public concern around the event and one of its sponsors”. 

It remains unclear whether the Misk Foundation will seek an alternative venue for the workshop at short notice. A U.N. spokesman told IPS it was “up to Misk to provide information on whether the event will take place elsewhere or not”.

Saudi Arabia’s mission to the U.N. and the Misk Foundation declined to comment on the controversy.

Protestors rallied outside a library building in Manhattan on Wednesday, carrying placards about Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen and referencing the “bone saw” that was reportedly used to dismember Khashoggi, a prominent critic of bin Salman. 

“This week’s protests show that the public will not keep quiet while the leadership of the NYPL, a treasured repository of civilisation, hires our library out to the butcherer of Khashoggi,” Matthew Zadrozny, president of the Committee to Save the New York Public Library, told IPS.

“The NYPL leadership must explain to the public it serves who signed the deal with bin Salman’s foundation and why.”

Kenneth Roth, director of HRW, blasted the “repression-whitewashing event” on Twitter and asked U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterres to scrap the partnership between his youth envoy, Wickramanayake, and the crown prince’s charity. 

Suzanne Nossel, CEO of rights group PEN America, said the library had made the “right choice”, addiing bin Salman’s government had “orchestrated the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi”.

“Hosting this event just days before the anniversary of Jamal’s killing would have been particularly appalling not just for his family, friends, and colleagues, but also for those currently being persecuted in the kingdom.”

Nossel also noted that the library “is the crown jewel of the literary community in New York” and it stands for “free exchange of ideas and free expression, qualities that the crown prince has repeatedly disdained in both words and actions”.

The NYPL event was set to see some 300 budding young entrepreneurs learn about green themes, corporate responsibility and other parts of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda.

Khashoggi, a U.S.-based journalist who frequently criticised the Saudi government, was killed and dismembered on Oct. 2 last year after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he collecting documents for his wedding.

The CIA assessed that bin Salman had ordered Khashoggi’s killing. U.N. expert Agnes Callamard has described the death as a “premeditated execution,” and called for bin Salman and other high-ranking Saudis to be investigated.

Officials in Riyadh, who initially said Khashoggi had left the premises unharmed, now say the journalist was killed by a rogue hit squad that did not involve bin Salman. Activists have since pushed for accountability over the killing.

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Awareness Should be the Priority in Public Health Efforts against Leprosy

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Health

Dexter, a 25-year-old fisherman from Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia, received treatment for Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy, for over a year. He has been cured of the disease. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

MANILA, Sep 9 2019 (IPS) – Increasing awareness of the continuing existence of Hansen’s Disease (leprosy) is critical to sustaining effective public health efforts against the disease, eliminating the social stigma associated with it, and halting its transmission.

That was the consensus reached by participants at the Global Forum of People’s Organisations on Hansen’s Disease in Manila on Sept. 9, following a lecture by Dr. Arturo Cunanan, the Chief Medical Officer of the Culion Sanitarium and General Hospital in the Philippines.The forum was organised by Japan’s Sasakawa Health Foundation (SHF) and The Nippon Foundation. 

Cunanan noted that for several years, the number of new cases has plateaued at about 200,000 per year, a troubling statistic that he attributed in part to a lack of awareness among public health bodies as well as people affected by the disease.

The social stigma attached to leprosy is a barrier to early detection of the disease, which is the key to slowing its rate of transmission. Cunanan said that the average length of time between the onset of the disease and the beginning of treatment is about two years.

This happens because on the one hand, patients are unaware of medical help available to them, unwilling, or otherwise unable to seek treatment due to stigma; and on the other, a lack of expertise and resources on the part of public health departments due to a misunderstanding of the persistence of the disease.

Not a priority

“Many public health and government officials confuse elimination and eradication,” Cunanan told the forum participants. “They think that leprosy being eliminated as a public health problem means it has been eradicated, so they are surprised when they learn it still exists.”

What this has resulted in is a decline in the material and human resources available for combatting leprosy. “Leprosy will never be a priority” for government health programmes, Cunanan said. “There are more pressing problems, bigger emergencies.”

The Philippines is a good example. The disease is considered a minor problem, and the number of new cases each year is relatively low – there were 2,108 new cases in 2017, out of a national population of about 107 million – but has been relatively consistent year after year, “between 2,000 and about 3,000”.

Because of the mistaken belief that leprosy has either disappeared entirely or has become rare, medical expertise and programmes have disappeared from public health institutions. That in turn has degraded the supervision and monitoring needed to identify new cases and prevent the transmission of the disease, Cunanan explained.

Lucy Massao, a member of the Tanzania Leprosy Association (TLA), noted that the stigma and lack of understanding of leprosy among the public in her country was also reflected in the shortcomings of the public health framework.

“We at TLA really spend a lot of time trying to educate people, including the officials,” she said. “Many patients, the health officials refer to us, because they cannot offer much support except for the medications. But they are improving, through working with us.”

Role of people’s organisations

Public health authorities elsewhere are also gradually recognising the value of the organisations of people who have been affected by leprosy. “You are the best experts,” Cunanan told the forum participants, “Because you have first-hand experience.”

Organisation members can assist in early detection and outreach, Cunanan explained, and help public health authorities improve their services to leprosy patients.

In the Philippines, collaboration with people’s organisations such as Coalition of Leprosy Advocates of the Philippines has actually been included in official policy. Philippine Assistant Secretary of Health Dr. Maria Laxamana, who delivered the keynote address on the forum’s first day, noted that “intensified collaborative efforts among [government] agencies and with private partners” is a key objective of the government’s National Leprosy Control Programme.

Dr. V.R. Pemmaraju of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Global Leprosy Programme said that there has been a marked growth in talent and inclusiveness among people’s organisations, which is increasing their effectiveness in supporting and extending public health efforts towards leprosy.

“What we’re seeing, and you can see it at this forum, is that the groups are more global, include more women, and are more educated about the disease and the support needed,” Pemmaraju told IPS.

“This has been very good from the point of view of the WHO, because of the added social aspect of the Global Leprosy Partnership,” he explained. Where people’s organisations still need to develop is in working effectively with governments.

“They [the organisations] have the experience and knowledge about leprosy, but what I’ve seen is that most need more skills in negotiating and engaging with government officials,” Pemmaraju said. “There is still some gap in inclusion of people’s organisations in forming public health policy [related to leprosy], and developing those skills would help to reduce that.”

Pemmaraju is upbeat about the prospects of people’s organisations gaining a bigger voice in public health policy towards leprosy.

“In each of these meetings, I see the groups growing globally and gaining more influence,” Pemmaraju said. “With the engagement of the people’s organisations, we [the WHO] are optimistic that we can achieve our goal of ‘zero leprosy.’”

 

U.N. Criticised for Link-up with Saudi Prince MBS

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Human Rights

Jamal Kahshoggi, a US-based journalist who frequently criticised the Saudi government, was killed while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was collecting papers for his wedding. Courtesy: POMED/CC by 2.0

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 4 2019 (IPS) – The United Nations is under growing pressure to scrap an event it is co-hosting with the private foundation of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, who has been linked to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

On Tuesday, Sunjeev Bery, director of Freedom Forward, became the latest leader of a campaign group to press the U.N. to cancel the Sept. 23 event, saying it would help repair bin Salman’s reputation over the Khashoggi murder. 

The event, known as the Misk-OSGEY Youth Forum, is a partnership between the U.N.’s youth envoy, Jayathma Wickramanayake, and the Misk Foundation, a culture and education foundation chaired by bin Salman, who is better known as MBS.

“No one — especially not the U.N. — should be partnering with MBS or his personal Misk Foundation,” Bery told IPS.

“Saudi Arabia’s brutal crown prince is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Yemeni children. His thugs imprisoned leading women’s rights activists and murdered Jamal Khashoggi.”

Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch, a campaign group, last week accused the world body of helping to “whitewash” MBS’s record; Mandeep Tiwana, from Civicus, a rights group, called the event “disturbing”.

The U.N. youth envoy’s office declined to comment on the row. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the world body had repeatedly issued “very strong statements … calling for accountability” in Khashoggi’s killing.

The Misk-OSGEY Youth Forum will take place in New York only 10 days before the first anniversary of Khashoggi’s murder on Oct. 2 last year, when Saudi government agents killed and dismembered the journalist inside the country’s consulate in Istanbul.

The CIA later determined that MBS had personally ordered the hit. Saudi officials, who initially said Khashoggi had left the consulate alive, now say the journalist was killed in a rogue operation that did not involve MBS.

Saudi Arabia’s mission to the U.N. did not answer requests for comment from IPS.

The four-hour workshop for 300 young people at the New York Public Library will occur on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly and promote green themes, corporate responsibility and other aspects of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda.

It will feature Alexandra Cousteau, an environmentalist and granddaughter of French explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau; and Bart Houlahan, an entrepreneur who promotes sustainable business practices.

Other speakers include Andrew Corbett, an expert on entrepreneurship at Babson College, Paul Polman, former CEO of consumer goods firm Unilever, and Ann Rosenberg, an author and U.N. technology expert.

Dr. Reem Bint Mansour Al-Saud, a Saudi princess and an envoy to U.N. headquarters in New York, who advocates for empowering women and development in the Gulf kingdom, will also speak at the workshop.

Khashoggi, a United States-based journalist who frequently criticised the Saudi government, was killed while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was collecting papers for his wedding.

U.N. expert Agnes Callamard issued a report in June that described the assassination as a “deliberate, premeditated execution,” and called for MBS and other Saudi officials to be probed.

The Misk-OSGEY Youth Forum comes after years of tensions between the U.N. and Riyadh over the war in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is leading a military coalition against the country’s Houthi rebels. 

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and caused led to a major humanitarian crisis. 

“The crown prince and his violent government must be held accountable for their human rights crimes,” said Bery, who advocates for the U.S. to cut ties with Saudi Arabia and other authoritarian regimes.

“Instead, misguided U.N. staff are absurdly giving the crown prince a public relations platform as he attempts to wipe away the blood of so many dead Yemeni children.”

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