Statement for the freedom of Mr. Ebrahim Yazdi

The Supreme Leader, Ayatullah Sayyed Ali Khamenei

We are writing to appeal to you for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Ebrahim Yazdi and all prisoners of conscience in the Islamic Republic of Iran whose sole offence is to speak out peacefully against the policies of your government. Their detention and abuse is an unjustifiable violation of internationally accepted norms of human rights and international law and is surely an affront to all religions that are based on the principles of justice, legality, and compassion. Furthermore, the detention of these prisoners of conscience is in violation of Iran’s own constitution and laws as well as Iran’s international obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, both of which the Islamic Republic of Iran has formally endorsed.

Ebrahim Yazdi is a man of honor who has for over 60 years devoted his life to democratic reforms in Iran and the promotion of respect for human rights throughout the Muslim world. Before the revolution, for two decades, he lived in exile where he worked tirelessly to expose the abusive rule of the Pahlavi monarchy. After the 1979 Revolution, he served with dignity and loyalty as Iran’s Foreign Minister under Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan. While in office, these two exceptional political leaders, opposed on principle the summary and arbitrary executions of enemies of the Iranian regime being carried out at that time. They later resigned in protest against the seizure of the US embassy in November 1979.

Ebrahim Yazdi is today the Secretary-General of the Freedom Movement of Iran ( Nehzat-e Azadi Iran ). He and the Freedom Movement have unequivocally insisted that their activities rely only on legal and non-violent methods of political opposition. He opposed the continuation of the war with Iraq after the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Iranian territory in 1982. As a believer in national reconciliation he has devoted himself to dialogue and mutual respect between Iran’s various political and social groups and has championed social and political reform and minority rights. For over thirty years, Ebrahim Yazdi has been a voice for moderation inside Iran, rejecting all initiatives by Iran’s governing elites that lead to violence, cause enmity within the society, and involve denials of human dignity. He has bravely criticized illegal government actions and the concentration of power in the hands of a few.

Dr. Yazdi has been arrested three times since the 2009 presidential election in Iran. At the time of his most recent arrest on October 1, 2010, he was attending a prayer service in a private house in the city of Isfahan. Police violently attacked the home and took him and several others into custody under the pretext that this was “an unauthorized prayer service”. Ebrahim Yazdi is now 80 years of age and in poor health. Indeed, at the age of 80, Dr. Yazdi is the oldest political prisoner in Iran and one of the oldest captives held anywhere in the world. Your government has subjected him to repeated and lengthy imprisonment as well as debilitating interrogations, definitely contributing to his need for emergency open heart surgery. Continued imprisonment may result in further severe deteriorations in his health.

We respectfully appeal to you to instruct your government to release Ebrahim Yazdi and all other non-violent prisoners of conscience in Iran, including Nasrin Sotoodeh, Mohammad Nourizad, Mostafa Tajzadeh, Abdullah Momeni, Majid Tavakkoli, Farid Taheri, Emad Bahavar, Bahareh Hedayat, Jafar Panahi, Leila Tavassoli, Mahdiyeh Golroo, Mohsen Mirdamadi, Feizullah Arab Sorkhi, Emaddedin Baghi, Mansour Osanloo, Issa Saharkhiz, Masoud Bastani, Ahmad Zeidabadi, Hoda Saber, Nazanin Khosravani, Mohsen Safaii Farahani, Reihaneh Tabatabai, Sajedeh Kinoush Rad, Mohsen Aminzadeh, Abdollah Ramazanzadeh, Farzaneh Roustaii, Mehdi Mahmoodian, Zhila Bani Yaghoob, Bahman Ahmadi Amoui, and Fariborz Raiis Dana.

We appeal to you to end this disregard for human rights that will eventually destroy all trust between your government and Iran’s citizens and block national dialogue and reform through reliance on the democratic institutions and practices of civil society. Wherever normal political activities of citizens is prevented and punished, other less peaceful means of change become inevitable. The regime of the late Shah of Iran is a telling example of the political consequences of such a degeneration of the Iranian governing process. Against all odds, with admirable courage, and at great human sacrifice, the people of Iran were ultimately successful in removing Shah’s powerful, yet abusive regime. The goal of the Iranian Revolution was to realize its inspiring vision of independence, freedom, constitutional governance, and popular sovereignty. Again, we appeal to you to release all prisoners of conscience in your prisons and to start a forthright dialogue with the Iranian people to bring that noble vision back to life and turn it finally into a reality. The people of Iran deserve nothing less.

Richard Falk

Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University

Research Professor, Global Studies, University of California-Santa Barbara

A copy was sent to:

Ayatullah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Head of the Assembly of Experts and Expediency Council, Islamic Republic of Iran

Ayatullah Sadeqh Larijani, Head of Judiciary, Islamic Republic of Iran

Dr. Mahmood Ahmadinejad, President, Islamic Republic of Iran

Dr. Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Majlis, Islamic Republic of Iran

Mr. Mohammad Khazaee, Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the United Nations

Appeal’s Supporting Names and Signatures

Douglas Allen

Professor of Philosophy, University of Maine

Alice Amsden

Barton L. Weller Professor of Development Economics, MIT

Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im (from Sudan)

Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Laurance S Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University; President, PEN American Center; Chair, Board of Officers, American Philosophical Association

Sibylle Appuhn-Radtke

Professor for the History of Arts, University of Erlangen, Germany

Andrew Arato

Professor in Political and Social Theory, New School for Social Research

Stanley Aronowitz

Distinguished Professor of Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center

Talal Asad

Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Anthony Barnett Founder, Open Democracy

Robert N. Bellah

Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

Ronald Beiner

Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto

Seyla Benhabib

Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy Yale University

Richard J. Bernstein

Vera List Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research

Michael Bérubé Paterno Family Professor in Literature, Director, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, The Pennsylvania State University

Michael Bordt

President of the Munich School of Philosophy, Germany

Rony Brauman Professeur at Sciences Po (Paris), former president of MSF ( France)

Stephen Eric Bronner

Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University

Rainer Brunner

Directeur de recherche, CNRS, Paris, France

Ian Buruma

Henry R. Luce Professor, at Bard College, New York

Charles E. Butterworth

Emeritus Professor, University of Maryland

Craig Calhoun

University Professor of the Social Sciences, Director, Institute for Public Knowledge, New York University

Craig Campbell

Director and Professor, Public Safety Management Program, St. Edward’s University

Richard Caplan

Professor of International Relations

Director, Centre for International Studies, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford

Jose Casanova

Professor of Sociology and Senior Fellow Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, at Georgetown University

Peter Chelkowski

University Professor

Partha Chatterjee

Professor of anthropology, Columbia University, New York

Noam Chomsky

Institute Professor (retired), MIT, Cambridge MA, USA

Simon Critchley

Chair Department of philosophy, New School for Social Research, New York

Fred Dallmayr

Chair and Professor of Philosophy and Political Science, Senior Fellow of the Kroc Institute

for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

Joyce Davis,

President of the World Affairs Council of Harrisburg and an independent journalist and media consultant

Ariel Dorfman

Author, Distinguished Professor, Duke University

Shadia Drury

Professor of Philosophy, University of Regina

Martín Espada

Professor of English, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

John L. Esposito

University Professor and Founding Director, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Christian-Muslim Understanding, George Town University

Roxanne L. Euben

Ralph Emerson and Alice Freeman Palmer Professor of Political Science, Wellesley College

Michel Feher

Writer

Patrick Franke

Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Bamberg, Germany

Edward Friedman

Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Johan Galtung

Founder TRANSCEND, Professor of Peace Studies

Robert Gassmann

Prof. em. of Chinese Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Todd Gitlin

Professor of Journalism and Sociology, Chair, Ph. D. Program in Communications, Columbia University

Jürgen Habermas

Philosopher and Social Thinker

Gerd Haeffner

Professor of Philosophy, Munich School of Philosophy, Germany

Michael Hainz

Institute of Societal Politics, Munich School of Philosophy, Germany

Thomas Harrison

Co-Director, Campaign for Peace and Democracy

W. D. Hart

Professor of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago

Seamus Heaney

Professor, Previously Teaching at Harvard

Sonja Hegasy

Vice-Director of the Center of the Modern Orient, Berlin, Germany

David Held

Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science, LSE, United Kingdom

Dick Howard

Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, SUNY at Stony Brook

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Northwestern University

David B. Ingram

Professor of Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago

Mark Juergensmeyer

Director Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies University of California, Santa Barbara

M.H. Kaldor

Prof. of Global Governance, London School of Economics

Otto Kallscheuer

Political Philosopher, University of Sassari, Italy

John Keane

Professor of Politics at the University of Sydney and the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB)

Thomas Keenan

Professor, Bard College

Rashid Khalidi

Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies Department of History, Columbia University

Anke von Kügelgen

Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Bern, Switzerland

Mirjam Künkler

Assistant Professor in Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University

Timur Kuran

Professor of Economics and Political Science and Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies, Duke University

Ernesto Laclau

Emeritus Professor at Essex University, UK

Joanne Landy Co-Director, Campaign for Peace and Democracy

Robert D. Lee

Professor of Political Science, Colorado College

Jesse Lemisch

Professor Emeritus, History, John Jay Coll of Criminal Justice, CUNY

Zachary Lockman Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and of History, New York University

Claudio Lomnitz

Campbell Family Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University

Steven Lukes

Professor of Sociology at New York University

Cecelia Lynch

Professor of Political Science, and Director, Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies, UC Irvine

Alan Macfarlane, F.B.A.

Professor of Anthropological Science, Emeritus, University of Cambridge

Mahmood Mamdani

Professor and Director, Makerere Institute of Social Research, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda

and Herbert Lehman Professor of Government, Columbia University, New York

Ulrika Mårtensson

Associate professor, Religious studies, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Brinkley Messick

Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University

Pankaj Mishra

Writer

Tariq Modood, MBE, AcSS

Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy, Director, University Research Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship and Founding Co-editor of Ethnicities (Sage), University of Bristol, UK

Ebrahim Moosa

Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, Department of Religion, Duke University

Rosalind Morris

Professor, Anthropology, Columbia University

Chantal Mouffe

Professor and Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, London

Johannes Müller

Prof. Dr., Institute for Social and Development Studies (Institut für Gesellschaftspolitik) at the Munich School of Philosophy, Germany

Anne Norton

Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

Claus Offe

Dr. rer. pol. Dr. h. c. Claus Offe, Dipl.-Soz., Professor em. of Political Science Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany

Friederike Pannewick

Professor of Arab Studies, Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies, Universität Marburg, Germany

Philip Pettit

L.S.Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values, Princeton University

Philip Pettit

Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University

Katha Pollitt

Writer

Noah Porter

Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Yale University, Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia

Hilary Putnam University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University

Joanne Rappaport

Professor, Department of Anthropology, Georgetown University

Joseph Raz

Thomas M. Macioce Professor of Law at Columbia Law School

Stefan Reichmuth

Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Bochum, Germany

David Rieff

Writer

Maurus Reinkowski

Professor of Islamic Studies and the History of the Islamic Peoples, University of Basel, Switzerland

Friedo Ricken

Professor em. of Philosophy at Munich School of Philosophy and University of Salzburg

William R. Roff

Professor Emeritus of History, Columbia University, New York

Hon. Professorial Fellow, Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Edinburgh

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Visiting Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University

Stephan Rosiny

German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Institute of Middle East Studies, Hamburg, Germany

Sara Roy

Senior Research Scholar, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University

Sharon Stanton Russell, BA, MA, MPA, PHD

Research Affiliate at Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and, in 1974-1975 Academic Year, Consultant for Manpower Policy, Planning and Evaluation of the Kavar Village Health Worker Project, from the Department of Community Medicine, Pahlavi University School of Medicine, Shiraz, Iran

Alfred Stepan

Wallace Sayre Professor of Government, Columbia University

Malise Ruthven, Ph.D.,

independent researcher and writer based in London UK

Joe Sacco

Cartoonist

Saskia Sassen

Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Columbia University

Reinhard Schulze

Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Bern, Switzerland

Christoph Schumann

Professor for Politics and Contemporary History of the Middle East, University of Erlangen, Germany

Jillian Schwedler

Associate Professor and Honors Program Director Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts

Richard Sennett

School Professor of Sociology, emeritus, The London School of Economics

Martin Shaw

Professorial Fellow in International Relations and Human Rights, Roehampton University, London

Research Professor of International Relations, Sussex University

Samer S. Shehata

Assistant Professor of Arab Politics, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies

Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

David Schweickart

Professor of Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago

Tamara Sonn

Wm. R. Kenan Professor of Humanities, Department of Religious Studies, College of William & Mary

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak ,

University Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University

Christian Steineck

Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Zürich, Switzerland

Alfred Stepan

Wallace Sayre Professor of Government, Columbia University

Jeffrey Stout Professor of Religion, Princeton University

Charles Taylor

Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at McGill University

Mary Ann Tetreault

Cox Distinguished Professor of International Affairs, Trinity University

Justin Tiwald Assistant Professor of Philosophy, San Francisco State University

Chris Toensing

Executive Director, Middle East Research and Information Project

Michael J. Thompson Professor, William Paterson University

Andreas Trampota

Munich School of Philosophy, Germany

Stephen Van Evera Ford International professor of Political Science, MIT

Johannes Wallacher

Professor for Social Sciences, Economics and Ethics, Munich School of Philosophy, Germany

Michael Walzer

Professor (emeritus) of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, co-editor of Dissent magazine

Wolfram Weisse

Director of the Academy of World Religions, University of Hamburg, Germany

Cornell West

Professor of Sociology, Princeton University

Stefan Wild

Professor em. of Semitic Languages and Islamic Studies, University of Bonn, Germany

Nicholas Wolterstorff

Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Yale University; and Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia

Reinhard Zintl

Professor of Political Studies, University of Bamberg, Germany

Michael Zirinsky

Professor of History, Boise State University

Slavoj Zizek

Co-Director, International Institute for Humanities, Birkbeck School of Law, University of London

Sami Zubaida

Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology, Birkbeck, University of London