Diplomacy that fails to address Iran's human-rights violations is hardly diplomacy at all

Globe and Mail

3 days ago

Irwin Cotler is the international chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, Canadian former minister of justice and attorney-general, and international legal counsel to Ahmadreza Djalali. Judith Abitan is the executive director of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and a fellow of Harvard University's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Scholars program.
On April 25, 2016, Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian disaster-medicine expert, was arrested by the Islamic Republic of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence. Despite being invited by the University of Tehran, he was arbitrarily detained and subjected to months of interrogation in solitary confinement at Evin Prison's Ward 209, and then sentenced to death for 'corruption on earth' following a sham trial based on coerced confessions of espionage extracted under torture.
Iranian state media has relentlessly spread falsehoods, portraying Dr. Djalali as a threat to the state and enemy of the people. These slanders have been exploited against him while traumatizing his family in Sweden, exemplifying the intersection of domestic oppression and transnational repression.
Dr. Djalali's wife and children – 13 and 4 when he was taken – have been forced to spend a significant part of their lives away from him. He continues to suffer from debilitating physical and mental health issues due to prolonged detention, denial of access to family, medical care and consular protection – conditions that amount to torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
Dr. Djalali's arbitrary detention not only violates Iran's international humanitarian obligations under relevant treaties and conventions, it breaches Iran's own civil, criminal, constitutional and Sharia laws. The Iranian Constitution guarantees fair trial rights, including the right to select legal representation, presumption of innocence and protection against unlawful detention – all of which have been violated in his case and in the cases of thousands of other documented detainees.
Yet as we write, the United States is negotiating a new nuclear deal with Tehran. There is no indication that Iran's human-rights violations will be raised as part of a potential deal; its persecution and prosecution of political prisoners, as well as 'the harms inherent in hostage-taking – most notably torture," which the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has characterized as 'a crime against humanity when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population with knowledge of the attack' – have yet to be redressed.
It is imperative that the negotiations confront Iran's sevenfold threat to international peace and security, its brutal crackdown on dissent, systemic repression of women, persecution of minorities, censorship of expression, violent suppression of protests, torture in prisons and weaponization of the judiciary.
Indeed, any diplomatic engagement that ignores these calculated and sustained attacks on human dignity is not diplomacy – it is complicity.
Inaction only serves to stain the world's liberal democracies. The Swedish government's unassertive action on Dr. Djalali's behalf risks undermining its principles of equality before the law, as seen in other emblematic cases involving detained Swedish citizens such as playwright and journalist Dawit Isaak, who has been jailed in Eritrea for more than two decades, and publisher Gui Minhai, who has been in custody in China since 2015.
Dr. Djalali's exclusion from a prisoner swap last year raises concerns that Sweden has de facto abandoned him, even though diplomatic remedy is an international obligation, not a matter of national discretion. In his own words, '3,288 days of suffering and being under risk of execution show the inefficacy of words and condemnation. Termination of my torture-like conditions needs a real and joint action by the EU and Swedish officials. Otherwise, if I die here, either due to execution or illness, the officials who were careless and neutral about my situation over all these years and left me behind when able to return me home, are also responsible in my death.'
Time is of the essence. In the first 25 days of May, at least 113 people were executed in Iran, averaging four per day, and on May 28, Iranian dissident Pedram Madani was executed. This is not just a travesty of justice; this is state-sanctioned extrajudicial killing.
As Dr. Djalali's health rapidly declines, the international community must act quickly to secure his release. Canada is well-placed to lead this effort by making the appropriate representations to the UN Human Rights Council, invoking the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations and requesting immediate medical furlough. The Community of Democracies should join France in initiating legal action against Iran at the International Court of Justice, using Dr. Djalali's case to highlight a broader pattern of arbitrary detention, executions and violations of consular rights.
Iran's mistreatment of Dr. Djalali is not only an affront to Sweden but a crime against all member states. Now, justice must be served without delay.