The following is excerpted from Columbia University President Lee Bollinger’s remarks yesterday to Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
OVER the past two weeks, your gov ernment has released Haleh Esfandi ari and Parnaz Azima and just two days ago, Kian Tajbakhsh, a graduate of Columbia. Tajbakhsh remains in Tehran under house arrest, and he still does not know whether he will be charged with a crime or allowed to leave the country.
The arrest and imprisonment of these Iranian-Americans for no good reason is not only unjustified, it runs completely counter to the very values that allow you to even appear on this campus.
But at least they are alive. According to Amnesty International, 210 people have been executed in Iran so far this year, 21 of them on the morning of Sept. 5 alone.
This annual total includes at least two children – further proof, as Human Rights Watch puts it, that Iran leads the world in executing minors.
There is more. Iran hanged up to 30 people this past July and August during a suppression of efforts to establish a more democratic society. These executions and others have coincided with a wider crackdown on student activists and academics accused of trying to foment a so-called “soft revolution.”
Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.
Why have women, members of the Baha’i faith, homosexuals and so many of our academic colleagues become targets of persecution in your country? Why are you so afraid of Iranian citizens expressing their opinions for change?
Holocaust denial
In a December 2005 state TV broadcast, you described the Holocaust as “a fabricated legend.” One year later, you held a two-day conference of Holocaust deniers.
For the illiterate and ignorant, this is dangerous propaganda.
When you have come to a place like this, this makes you, quite simply, ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.
The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history. Because of this, and for many other reasons, your absurd comments about the “debate” over the Holocaust both defy historical truth and make all of us who continue to fear humanity’s capacity for evil shudder at this closure of memory, which is always virtue’s first line of defense.
Will you cease this outrage?
The destruction of Israel
Twelve days ago you said that the state of Israel cannot continue its life. This echoed a number of inflammatory statements you have delivered in the past two years, including in October 2005, when you said that Israel “should be wiped off the map.”
Columbia has over 800 alumni living in Israel; we have deep ties with our colleagues there. I have spoken out in most forceful terms against proposals to boycott Israeli scholars and universities, saying that such boycotts might as well include Columbia. More than 400 college and university presidents in this country have joined in that statement.
Do you plan on wiping us off the map too?
Funding terrorism
It’s well-documented that Iran is a state sponsor of terror that funds such violent groups as Lebanese Hezbollah, Palestinian Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Your government is now undermining American troops in Iraq by funding, arming and providing safe transit to insurgent forces. There are a number of reports that also link your government with Syria’s efforts to destabilize the fledgling Lebanese government through violence and political assassination.
Why do you support well-documented terrorist organizations that continue to strike at peace and democracy in the Middle East, destroying lives and the civil society of the region?
The proxy war in Iraq
Earlier this month, Gen. David Petraeus reported that arms supplies from Iran, including 240-millimeter rockets and explosively formed projectiles, are contributing to, quote, “a sophistication of attacks that would by no means be possible without Iranian support.”
A number of Columbia graduates and current students are among the brave members of our military who are serving or have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They, like other Americans with sons, daughters, fathers, husbands and wives serving in combat, rightly see your government as the enemy.
Can you tell them and us why Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq by arming Shi’a militia targeting and killing U.S. troops?
Iran’s nuclear program
This week, the U.N. Security Council is contemplating expanding sanctions for a third time, because of your government’s refusal to suspend its uranium-enrichment program. You continue to defy this world body by claiming a right to develop a peaceful nuclear power, but this hardly withstands scrutiny when you continue to issue military threats to neighbors.
Why does your country continue to refuse to adhere to international standards for nuclear-weapons verification, in defiance of agreements that you have made with the U.N. nuclear agency?
And why have you chosen to make the people of your country vulnerable to the effects of international economic sanctions, and threaten to engulf the world in nuclear annihilation?
A closing challenge
Frankly, Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do.
Fortunately, I am told by experts on your country that this only further undermines your position in Iran, with all the many good-hearted, intelligent citizens there.
A year ago, I am reliably told, your preposterous and belligerent statements in this country, to the Council on Foreign Relations, so embarrassed sensible Iranian citizens that this led to your party’s defeat in the December mayoral elections. May this do that and more.