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(Wall Street Journal Europe) Emanuele Ottolenghi - The recent decision by the Obama administration to sanction some of the Iranian regime's worst human-rights abusers is a welcome step in the right direction. The EU, meanwhile, hasn't even decided yet whether to consider at all human rights sanctions against Iran. Western politicians must raise specific cases of dissidents and imprisoned opposition figures, demand their swift release, and exact a price for noncompliance. For example, those governments that still have an embassy in Tehran could downgrade diplomatic relations with Tehran by withdrawing ambassadors if their demands are not met. Certainly, visiting Iranian officials no longer deserve the red-carpet treatment or platforms to spread their propaganda. And Western leaders could more aggressively apply existing human-rights legislation to curtail exports of technology that could be used for repressing Iran's population. Western governments and NGOs should also bestow human-rights prizes on Iranian dissidents and honor the memory of those Iranians the regime murdered for their opposition to Islamist oppression. The writer is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the author of the forthcoming book Iran: The Looming Crisis (Profile Books 2010).
2010-10-15 10:05:34
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