America and Iran: The Limits of Free Speech from The Economist

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America and Iran

The limits of free expression
Sep 27th 2007 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition


A rough ride for Iran's president

NEW YORK is used to the drama (and the traffic) created by visiting dignitaries. But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, caused more stir than most. He started by asking whether he could lay a wreath at Ground Zero as a show of respect. "Access of Evil" cried the tabloids; "Zero Chance", and "Go to Hell". Condoleezza Rice called the idea "a travesty". Fairly swiftly, the visit was ruled out by the New York Police Department on security grounds. But Mr Ahmadinejad then prompted an even bigger ruckus when he appeared at Columbia University's World Leaders Forum on September 24th.

Politicians, from city councillors to presidential candidates, were appalled that an invitation had been extended in the first place. Sheldon Silver, speaker of the New York State Assembly, threatened to withhold state support from Columbia. Mitt Romney, a Republican hopeful, released a television commercial condemning the visit. But Lee Bollinger, Columbia's president, refused to withdraw his invitation. It would offend against the principle of free expression, he said: a principle revered in America, but not in Iran. Perhaps to save face, he opened the forum by blasting Mr Ahmadinejad as a "petty and cruel dictator", questioning his "intellectual courage", and describing his take on the Holocaust as "ridiculous".

The campus was plastered with posters both supporting and condemning Mr Ahmadinejad's appearance. A list of children supposedly on Iran's death row hung on the campus gates. Audience members challenged him over reports that more than 200 people have been executed in Iran so far this year. Members of an ad hoc student committee wore black T-shirts with a quotation from Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Mr Ahmadinejad's remarks and answers drew applause in parts, but much of what he said was met with incredulity. He called for more research into the Holocaust as well as more investigation into the "root causes" of the September 11th attacks. When asked about the oppression of women in Iran, he retorted that they were exempt from many responsibilities "because of the respect culturally given to women". His audience laughed out loud when he said that, in Iran, "we do not have homosexuals like in your country".

The attention being paid to Iran, at Columbia and in Washington, is increasing pressure to do something about its fishy nuclear programmehough something short of war. The urge to turn the screws, combined with the meekness of UN sanctions, has led to new efforts to divest America's pension funds from companiesainly foreign ones, or subsidiaries of American groupshat do business with Iran. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's governor, will soon sign a bill that will divest California's two main public pension funds (for civil servants and teachers) from all such companies. The funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS, are the two biggest pension funds in the country; CalPERS alone manages $250 billion, of which about $2 billion will have to be pulled out of companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Total and Alcatel, a telecoms firm. The bill's backers hope that other states will follow suit, and that eventually the federal government will be persuaded to tighten its own sanctions.


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