This post was co-authored by Natasha Bahrami, a foreign policy researcher, and Ali Arab, Ph.D., an assistant professor of statistics at Georgetown University.
Last month, a young American woman was blocked from purchasing an Apple product at a local store in Alpharetta, Georgia. After overhearing her speaking Farsi, the second generation Iranian-American was informed that selling the product to her went against the company's policy. Apple's export compliance policy states that direct or indirect sales of Apple goods to any embargoed country are prohibited, apparently categorizing domestic sales to Iranian-Americans as an indirect channel of distribution -- but such policies are essentially unenforceable. Current embargoed countries include Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. By such logic, corporations would turn away any consumers who are Cuban-American, Syrian-American -- you get the idea.
Although the Apple store incident could be minimized and considered a misinterpretation of Apple's policy by an individual location or clerk, the incident is just the newest in a series of unfortunate misapplications and misinterpretations of sanctions legislations towards Iranians and Iranian-Americans, many of which have had stronger implications against the inherent freedom of intellectual engagement.
In 2003, Iranian scholars, scientists and writers faced discrimination when the Office of Foreign Assets Control's (OFAC) imposed a ruling of the Berman Amendment that prohibited U.S. publishers from engaging in any publishing activity with an author from a sanctioned country without first applying for a special license. This broad interpretation of sanction legislation directly affected a sensitive demographic; those authors, scientists and activists who were already victims of oppression from their native governments and sought to expand their freedoms under the protection of U.S. policy.
Nobel Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi, honored for her work on human rights and free speech in Iran, was one of the first writers to be affected. Ebadi criticized the regulations as contrary to the free exchange of ideas claimed to be valued by the U.S., as it hindered her ability to work with a U.S. literary agent on a book proposal. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the American Chemical Society (ACS) were two professional societies affected by the OFAC regulations, reluctantly forced to temporarily revoke membership and deny publication benefits to their Iranian scientists.
The Association of American University Presses and co-plaintiffs filed a suit against OFAC in 2004 arguing that its interpretative ruling of the Berman Amendment was illegal as it violated the First Amendment right to select, process and publish information without restriction. The plaintiffs successfully resolved the lawsuit three years later, only after OFAC revised the regulations and eliminated the need for prior licensing.
Impacts of sanction legislation, however, are not limited to the scope of property and information. With the Iranian economy deteriorating under the ever increasing sanctions, Iranian students studying or having the aspiration to study abroad are shouldering the burden of sanctions as they are often unable to access currency, transfer funds or afford tuition due to spiraling inflation. Despite encouraging statements by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging Iranian students to attend American universities, the sanction restrictions that ban transactions between Iranian banks and U.S. financial institutions prohibit students from making direct payments to educational institutions, encouraging black market growth as students are forced to solicit brokers to bypass sanctions laws.
Even the recent initiative taken by the Obama Administration to allow multiple entry visa options for Iranian students has incurred problems from its own policy restrictions. Outside of the financial burden and risk attributed to returning to Iran to reapply for a visa, this new policy limits issuance of multiple entry visas to those in the non-sensitive, non-technical fields of study and research. Considering the ban imposed by the regime forbidding students from taking social science and humanity courses at domestic universities in Iran, this policy restriction creates additional obstacles for student exchange. According to a recent survey, out of a sample of 148 successful student visa applications issued to Iranian students between July and December 2011, only20 percent were issued as multiple entry visas.
While these sanctions are currently preferred to more severe alternatives in dealing with Iran's nuclear program dilemma, these so-called "smart sanctions" are increasingly violating the basic human rights and inherent freedoms of the Iranian people. The sanctions and resulting regulations that restrict the free flow of information and ideas are contradictory to the authors' intended goals of protecting American security. As the promotion of democracy coincides directly with a population's ability to freely access information and facilitate meaningful exchanges, policy makers must be careful that sanction legislation is not so broad or undefined that it becomes self-defeating and prohibits the very freedoms it serves to protect.
Follow Dr. Jeffrey H. Toney on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jefftoney
Bitta Mostofi: Apple Should "Think Different" on Sanctions
I would like to emphasize that this article is not questioning the philosophy of sanctions but rather discusses that there are misapplications and misinterpretations of sanctions that interfere information and scientific exchange. This is not the goal of the sanctions in the first place and it should not be as it violates human rights of Iranian people with regards to access to information, scientific exchange, etc. Also, I would like to point out that as Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights and Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (see reference links below) protect the freedom to enjoy and share the benefits of science and scientific advancements, the obstacles prohibiting information exchange should be recognized as violations of these freedoms.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cescr.htm#art15
Iranian regime violates all 30 of them.
Especially Article 18.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."
As stated before, these are the rights of the people and we are advocating the rights and the freedoms without siding with the politics involved. As educators, we are worried about the struggle of the Iranian students, scholars and scientists whether its enforced by the IRI or the West.
What is your point exactly?
Are you trying to say that since the iranian regime violates human rights then we should do the same? (By the way, we already do!)
If so, then that is very childish and unreasonable.
Do you also think that since the US has nuclear weapons, then Iran should have them, too? Because a reasonable and peaceful person would want no nuclear weapons for any country.
Obviously not.
Iranian regime is under great economic and political stress because of the sanctions, especially the recently enacted EU sanctions. Additional benefit: our economic partners China and India are greatly benefiting from the sanctions.
India will now pay for much of Iranian oil in rupees! This will help the world's biggest democracy. I am all for it.
Um... yeah...
This statement is irrational. Given the fact that White House actively promotes sanctions on Iran.
Thank you for your comments. I encourage more engaged, civil discussion in ways to promote intellectual freedom globally. Our post's scope is not limited to Iran.
You could've gotten the same results on Soviet democracy interviewing people on the streets of Moscow in 1987.
I still have some faith in the UK public's ability to discriminate... to resist the madness sweeping through America. We can see what a joke Romney is and the sort of people the Republican party pushes to the front to argue its case, such as Bachmann and co. Whoever wins in October may be disappointed with just how 'special' the UK/US 'relationship' is these days... And I hope that when war becomes inevitable, the million who marched through London against the Iraq invasion will be doubled or trebled and bring tents. Britain should have no more to do with it - or any future US aggression.
Persia will sell it's oil to China, India, ect. Technology is porous. I bet ya right now A Chinese or Indian clone I-Pod is being made for export to Persia. As if they would suffer from a lack of I-Pods. Even drones can be cloned.
Boycotting nations get nothing except sore losers. Think about escalating the cost of greed.
So I gather you oppose boycotting Israel?
It was WE and other members of the Gang of Five who sat silent, thwarting progress and pissing off the Iranians.
So, she restored a full-speed-ahead enrichment program that we now INSIST they stop before we untwist the knife in the collective backs of the people of Iran.
Why, again?
Because she is enriching uranium as is her inalienable right under the NPT?
Iran is not my favorite country.
And I wish she were not pursuing nuclear energy.
But we pushed the Shah to get on with it, and the genie is out of the bottle.
And now the Ayatollahs own the bottle.
Funny, wha'?
The United Nations has agreed that Iran should not be permitted to become a nuclear weapons owner. Sanctions are a better alternative than war.
Read an alternative world view by none other than Pat Buchanan:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e52c592a-d4ad-11e1-bb88-00144feabdc0.html
Resolution 1696 (31 July 2006) demanded that Iran suspend its uranium enrichment activities, invoking Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter to make that demand legally binding on Iran.
Resolution 1737 (23 December 2006) imposed sanctions after Iran refused to suspend its enrichment activities, cutting off nuclear cooperation, demanding that Iran cooperate with the IAEA, and freezing the assets of a number of persons and organizations linked to Iran's nuclear and missile programs. It established a committee to monitor sanctions implementation.[117]
Resolution 1747 (24 March 2007) expanded the list of sanctioned Iranian entities and welcomed the proposal by the permanent five members of the Security Council plus Germany for resolving issues regarding Iran's nuclear program.
In resolution 1803 (3 March 2008), the Council decided to extend those sanctions to additional persons and entities, impose travel restrictions on sanctioned persons, and bar exports of nuclear- and missile-related dual-use goods to Iran.[118]
Resolution 1835 (27 September 2008) reaffirmed the preceding four resolutions, the only one of the seven not to invoke Chapter VII.
Resolution 1929 (9 June 2010) imposed a complete arms embargo on Iran, banned Iran from any activities related to ballistic missiles, authorized the inspection and seizure of shipments violating these restrictions, and extended the asset freeze to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL). The resolution passed by a vote of 12–2, with Turkey and Brazil voting against and Lebanon abstaining.
Tehran Spring is coming soon.
"If the Iranian people are able to topple the government, this could improve the situation. [In 2009] the people of Iran rose up and were badly suppressed. Right now, Iran is the country with the most journalists in prison. This is the price people are paying--Shirin Ebadi
When push comes to shove, most people are just trying to live their lives as happily as they can. Few are willing to step in front of a loaded gun and put their families' lives in danger in the hope of ousting a bunch of jerks from power when it's likely that some other group of jerks with a different name will replace them.
Yes.
It worked in Libya, Egypt and about to work in Syria.
Try to keep up with current events.
The people posting that type of nonsense are obviously ignorant of what has happened in that country in the past 50 years. They are obviously uneducated.
I am also pretty sure they would not be willing to take that type of risk themselves if they knew what happens to political prisoners in Iran. They act like the iranian people have never tried to rise up against the government. Wake up people! Try reading about a topic before arguing about it and making yourself look foolish.