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Oppose Tehran's Human-Rights Abuses Just Like Gaddafi's

(Wall Street Journal Europe) Emanuele Ottolenghi - Western democracies have been quick to condemn Libya's Gaddafi, and have passed a number of measures against him and his regime since Tripoli's crackdown began. By contrast, there appears no urgency in the West to adopt human-rights sanctions against Tehran. Like Libya, Iran is a place where dissent has been put down, with varying degrees of brutality, for decades. There, torture is rife and the family members of dissidents are intimidated, kidnapped and sometimes raped; hundreds of political prisoners, minorities, homosexuals and women die at the hangman's hands every year, following hasty trials held in utter disregard for the most elementary rules of fairness and justice; and cruelty is dispensed regularly for the sole purpose of instilling fear in the population. Western leaders should show they're not indifferent to the Iranian people's suffering by hitting Tehran with similar measures to the ones they're imposing on Gaddafi. The writer is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2011-03-04 00:00:00
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