On April 18, 1991, agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran assassinated my father, Abdorrahman Boroumand, in Paris. Three months later, Shapour Bakhtiar, his friend and the man with whom he had fought for more than 40 years for the establishment of democracy in Iran, was also assassinated in similar conditions. Together, they had founded the NAMIR (1980), the first political movement to oppose Tehran's Theocracy and to fight for the respect of fundamental human rights. Their deaths were an irreparable loss for NAMIR, as well as for the Iranian opposition.
Their names were added to the already long list of Iranian and foreign victims of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A list which, alas, has grown longer ever since. Today, I speak to you as a human rights activist as well as a victim of terrorism. I would like to talk to you today about the efficiency of Terror as an instrument of the Regime's survival.
What the relatives of the victims endure in these terrorist attempts is impossible to describe. This is an experience one does not wish to share and hates to see happen to anyone else, including to those responsible for it. It is an encounter with evil. The day after the crime we find ourselves with a mutilated soul. And this is precisely where lies the effectiveness of Terror. It is not as much for the life it takes than for the faith in human being that it shatters. How then is it possible to find the strength to believe again, and to fight for the human being who is capable of such an act? Doesn't the crime committed by a few, soil all of humanity? Don't we, relatives of the victims, share this feeling of guilt?
To understand the Islamic Republic and the profound reasons behind its crimes is the first battle of a philosophic, if not theological war which promises to be long. Why has the Islamic Republic eliminated Bakhtiar and Boroumand ?. How threatening for the Regime could have been these two elderly men, living thousands of kilometers away from their homeland, without means, arms or army, and deprived of international support. Why killing them at a time when Europe was beginning a 'critical dialogue' with Iran and France was negotiating the return of Iran s financial assets?.
These crimes, no matter how absurd they appear, aimed at and hit specific and important objectives for the Islamic Republic. Bakhtiar was a man who predicted early on the disaster that was the Islamic Republic. For Iranians, he embodied the validity and the universality of human rights. He belonged to Iran's democratic tradition, and it is in the language of the poets Hafez and Saadi that he addressed his people and defended human rights and dignity.
He was the proof par excellence that one could be Iranian and yet support human rights; that those rights were not the monopoly of the West. Thus, eliminating Bakhtiar was not suppressing an immediate and objective danger, but suppressing an idea. It was an attempt to destroy opposition to the guardianship of the theologian, and a strike against universality of human rights. Ladies and Gentlemen, there was no personal enmity between Bakhtiar, Boroumand and the mullahs of Tehran. Indeed, through Bakhtiar's body they hit principles, but there does not lie their victory, for mullahs know, as we do, that ideas and ideals survive men. The reaction of the French government whose territory , laws and principles were violated by a terrorist state was a triumph for the Islamic Republic.
Bakhtiar and his secretary were discovered over 36 hours after their assassination, even though his residence was under heavy surveillance, even though the French police was supposed to be constantly in touch with them, even though delivered grocery remained untouched at the front door and even though the lights were on and the television functioned for 36 hours. It took Bakhtiar's son forty-eight hours to have the assassin's pictures released. The three murderers had enough time to escape. The Swiss customs officers, suspecting the authenticity of the three criminals' Turkish passports, turned them back to France. Arrested for a short while by French customs officers, they were released. The authorities investigated none of these police irregularities. The State protected its employees and took full responsibility. French officials stressed that this 'incident' should not have any impact on Franco-Iranian rapprochement. It took a strong public reaction to deter, belatedly, president Mitterand from undertaking his scheduled state visit to Iran. And to crown it all, France returned the Iranian people's financial assets to the Mullahs.
May be Western statesmen are not aware of the long-term consequences of their decisions. May be they do not grasp the full meaning of their acts. For the Islamist ideologists, including President Khatami, western civilization is a materialistic one, one that lacks spiritual values. Everything, says Khatami, is based on money. No matter its strength, no matter its valuable contribution to human history, this civilization, asserts Khatami, is declining. There, human dignity is a chimera. The West particularly Germany and France, by tolerating, on their territory, the violation of their sovereignty and the abolition of the asylum right which underlies the universality of rights, by denying the right to justice to victims of terrorism in return for a few lucrative contracts give substance to the Islamist assumption.
When asked to define their regime, the Islamist leaders portray it as opposed to the west, as embodied in the universal values that dictated the American Declaration of Independence, the French Declaration of 1789 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. If we ask them to give us a positive definition, they have no response. They do not know it themselves. In sum, the denial of rights and modernity is the essence of the Islamic Republic. That is probably why this regime can not give up international terrorism, the only means of affirming its negative essence. When Western democracies implicitly approve, on their own territory, this denial, they do more than business with Iran, they reinforce the foundation of this regime and betray the principles of their own body politic. This betrayal is the biggest victory of the Islamic Republic. The lives of the exiled Iranians then become a battlefield where the Islamic Republic transforms the contradictions and inconsistencies of the West into effective weapons against democracy and human rights.
What is then the appropriate policy to adopt toward Tehran's theocracy? I do not speak as a victim of terrorism anymore; for her it is too late; nor do I speak as an Iranian individual, a private person who can find a solution to her problem: live securely here or give up her fight and return to Iran. Let me talk as a human rights activist.
We have the tragic privilege to witness a great historic era. The ancient nation-states, which were in a permanent state of war, are progressively changing into states of rights, profoundly transforming the international order. At the same time, the Islamic world is challenged by democracy. Nationalism is an outdated response. Thus, the Islamic culture must answer questions about the human being and his political existence. So far, Islamic fundamentalism has been a reaction of fear, a No without content. Today, the Islamic Republic finds itself in an impasse. The pressure from the disenchanted and resentful Iranian youth is a constant reminder to the mullahs of the inadequacy of their project. Our generation must face the heavy burden of conceptualizing modernity in the Irano-Islamic context, to strive for a cultural renaissance. To accomplish this task, we ask neither for arms nor for money. We ask only that you remain loyal to your principles, overcome your contradictions, and be coherent and consistent. We ask you to firmly defend human rights, while remaining open and ready for dialogue. In doing this, you will enhance the prestige of democracy and the Declaration of Human Rights. Incredulity and cynicism could no longer be obstacles to the adherence of the Iranian youth to this declaration. No doubt, the tyranny that draws its force from the paradoxes of democracy will collapse like a house of cards: remember the fall of the Berlin wall.
Ladan Boroumand