Tuesday, February 01, 2011

The Failure of Quiet Diplomacy


Anybody still reading? Kamran has a post at EA Worldview about the failure of quiet diplomacy, which resulted in the execution of Zahra Bahrami.

Here are his recommendations:
Here are some minimum recommendations for the Dutch government.

1. The Netherlands should lead an international effort to challenge Iran's refusal to accept dual nationality.

2. The Dutch government should lead efforts to bring the issue of human rights in Iran to the European Parliament.

3. The Netherlands should crack down on the operations of Iranian intelligence officers located here because the Dutch-Iranian community feels unsafe. Over the past two years, intelligence personnel attached to the Iranian Embassy in the Netherlands have been seen publicly photographing Dutch-Iranian citizens attending demonstrations and are known to be collecting information.

4. The Netherlands should stop issuing visas for any purpose to personnel of the Revolutionary Guards, the judiciary, and related organisations.

5. The Netherlands should approve the asylum applications of political refugees who left Iran since 2009. Many of their applications have been denied.

6. Respect for human rights needs to become a business concern as wellas a political concern.

7. The Dutch Government should lead an effort to call for the immediate release of all prisoners of conscience in Iran.

8. The Dutch Government should protest the use of (forced) confessions against prisoners of conscience and others.

Read the whole post at EA Worldview.

7 comments:

Naj said...

"The Netherlands should lead an international effort to challenge Iran's refusal to accept dual nationality."

That means the Netherlands should relax its own dual citizenship laws.

Unknown said...

That may be true, but a Dutch citizen can choose to renounce his or her citizenship and the child of say, an American-Dutch union who does not live in the Netherlands is not required to become a Dutch citizen. Plus, in fact, the Dutch government has relaxed its dual citizenship laws dramatically by allowing certain classes of citizens to hold dual nationality. A Dutch friend in Iran told us that the Dutch government took away her passport when she married her Iranian husband. They returned it after the revolution.

Unknown said...

I wanted to write: hurray, a comment! someone still reads this ;-)

Naj said...

:)
I know the hurray feeling :))

Anonymous said...

you are absolutly right !! But as u can imagine this is all about money !!!!and business that netherland authorities are doing with the Iranian dictator regime !!!

attack on iran said...

Its never been clear to me why other countries - especially democratic ones - do not allow for dual citizenship. In the US, dual citizenship is completely legal. Why would it not be the case in Holland as well?

Unknown said...

Actually dual citizenship is an issue in many democratic countries including, in some cases, the US & Holland. But in this case, the issue is with Iran. If a dual citizen gets into trouble in Iran the embassies of their adopted countries do not have the legal right to represent them. This does not mean they can do nothing, but it does mean they do not have the legal backing to gain access to the dual national.

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