Prominent Iranians launch campaign calling on Congress not to kill Iran deal

Dozens of high-profile Iranians, many of whom have been jailed for their political views, launched a video campaign calling on the American people to lobby Congress not to jeopardise the landmark nuclear agreement.

The campaign includes messages from celebrated film-maker Jafar Panahi, Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, and British-Iranian activist Ghoncheh Ghavami.

Many of the campaign’s participants have been persecuted in Iran for their beliefs or activism, sentenced to lengthy prison terms or even solitary confinement. But they have expressed support for the Vienna nuclear agreement struck in July between Iran and the world’s six major powers, calling it a good deal which could avert threats of war.

Mohammadreza Jalaeipour, one of the organisers of the campaign, said the video was intended to show “that those who have paid the highest prices for the cause of democracy and human rights in Iran are supporting the deal”.

The video messages were gathered, to show to the world “that not only the overwhelming majority of Iranians, but also almost all the leading human rights and pro-democracy activists, prominent political prisoners and the independent voices of Iran’s society are wholeheartedly supporting the Iran deal,” the activist, who spent five months in solitary confinement in Iran, said.

In her video, Ghavami said, “I support the Iran deal because I strongly believe that sanctions are violating the human rights of the Iranian people.”. The British-Iranian activist spent five months in jail last year, for trying to attend a men’s volleyball match, drawing worldwide attention. “It’s time for Americans to contact their representatives in the Congress and ask them to vote for peace. The whole world is watching.”

Panahi, a former prisoner of conscience jailed for supporting the opposition Green movement whose film Taxi won the Golden Bear at Berlin this year, also recorded a message.

“I am a film-maker. I work with imagination, but not imagination alone; imagination immersed in reality,” he said in his video. “What is happening in the US Congress and among American policy makers is mere imagination with no sense of reality. They think or they imagine that with sanctions and war, things can be accomplished. This is not the reality of my country.”

Opponents of the nuclear deal have invoked Iran’s poor human rights record as a reason why Congress should not approve the deal but a large number of Iranian activists and dissidents believe years of isolation and financial stringency under sanctions have badly hurt ordinary people in Iran and weakened its civil society.

The campaign’s release comes at a time when a number of Iranian exiles who oppose the deal have been invited to testify before Congress.

According to Jalaeipour, “activists in Iran want the outside world to hear their voices and believe those invited to Congress are not reflective of the Iranian society at large but have a louder voice in the US”.

Congress is expected to vote on a motion to disapprove of the deal in mid-September. President Obama has promised to veto it but it is still not clear if he has enough backing in Congress to make sure opponents cannot override it.

Iranian opponents of the deal published a letter earlier this month, which said they “deeply respect the experience and views” of those who have supported the agreement but in their view, “appeasing the Iranian regime will lead to a more dangerous world”.

Nasrin Sotoudeh, Iran’s most prominent human rights laywer who has spent years in jail, disagrees. In her audio message from Tehran, she said though she is a victim of Iran’s rights violations, she pleaded with Americans to ask their representatives not to drag them into an unwanted war.

Iran’s sole Nobel laureate, Ebadi, echoed her. “I support the Iran deal because, as the US president said, the alternative is war and war is not in the interest of Iran, the Middle East and the world,” she said.

Zia Nabavi, an Iranian political prisoner who is serving a 10-year prison term, also sent a message from jail. “As an Iranian citizen, I support the Iran deal. It is evident that this support is neither a validation of the injustices placed upon me nor an approval of the human rights situation in Iran.

“I do not agree with those who assume that imposing sanctions can lead to the improvement of the human rights situation in Iran as I do not believe that the right for a secure and prosperous life can be separated from human rights. I therefore hope that American citizens, like the majority of Iranian citizens, will reach out to their representatives in Congress and ask them to support this deal and to give dialogue and diplomacy a chance for success.”

The long list of the campaign supporters include Mohammad Taghi Karroubi, the son of an Iranian opposition leader under house arrest, Saeed Shariati, a political activist, Ebrahim Yazdi, a former foreign minister and Emad Bahavar, a former political prisoner who has spent five years in prison.

Americans who have been jailed in Iran have come out in support of the nucleardeal, including Sarah Shourd, an American hiker who was jailed along two friends in 2009 and accused of spying and John Limbert, an American diplomat who was taken hostage for 444 days in 1979 after revolutionary students took over the US embassy in Tehran.