Carleton University under fire for hosting Khomeini

OTTAWA — An event hosted at Carleton University earlier this month that celebrated the religious and political teachings of Iran’s theocratic ruler Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini has come under fire for ignoring the Iranian revolutionary leader’s human rights record.

Ten Iranian-Canadian academics wrote a letter to Carleton’s president Roseann O’Reilly Runte outlining their objections to the June 2 event titled “The Contemporary Awakening and Imam Khomeini’s Thoughts.”

Fourteen other prominent figures from Canada’s sizable Iranian population, including Nazanin Afshin-Jam, wife of Defence Minister Peter MacKay and a former Miss Canada, addressed a separate letter also voicing concerns about the positive portrayal of Khomeini at the conference.

The event was organized by a student group, the Iranian Culture Association of Carleton University (ICACU), in collaboration with the Culture Centre of the Islamic Republic of Iran to honour the 23rd anniversary of Khomeini’s death. According to the Iranian Culture Centre’s report of the event, the three speakers “provided the perfect image of how great the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran truly was.”

What was not discussed at the event, the letter writers contend, was Khomeini’s human rights record, including his mass execution of political prisoners and minority groups and the many scholars and activists who were imprisoned under his regime, as documented by United Nations sanctions and Amnesty International reports. Among the signatories to the academics’ letter is Ramin Jahanbegloo, a University of Toronto professor who was detained without charge by Iranian authorities in 2006.

“We think reputable academic institutions have a moral obligation not to turn a blind eye on atrocities committed against their colleagues in other countries,” the letter reads.

The second letter states, “Carleton University, one of the leading academic institutions in this country, negligently permitted its campus to become the site of a celebration of a human rights violations, gender inequality and anti-Semitism.”

Carleton’s response was brief. Runte replied with a one-line email to the academics that read, “Thank you and your colleagues for your recent letter. Carleton University did not sponsor or act as host to the event you mention.”

A Carleton spokesperson later stated that the university hosts many events on its campus, and though subjects are sometimes controversial, views expressed do not reflect the university as a whole and Carleton, “like all other Canadian universities, encourages a culture of debate and free expression.”

Both letters acknowledged the importance of a healthy debate of ideas, even the controversial. However, both letters also stated the nature of the conference was not academic because it failed to address other views and historical facts.

“This meeting is not an academic study of the writings or legacy of Khomeini, it’s a propaganda exercise and one could argue hate speech because of what it omits,” said Payam Akhavan, one of the signatories, a professor at McGill University and a co-founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. “It’s a bit like having an event on the life and writings of Adolf Hitler without mentioning the holocaust.”

Friday was the last day of Iran Tribunal hearings in London, where activists, survivors and family members of those executed during Khomeini’s 1980s political killings met to share their stories and raise awareness of their history and treatment. Akhavan, who was present at the event, said the testimonies he heard included stories of judicially sanctioned rape so that virgin women would not go to paradise after execution, a six-month pregnant woman who was severely beaten in prison and a 14-year-old boy who called out for his mother as Iranian authorities tightened the noose around his neck.

In contrast, video footage of the Carleton event that was broadcast on Iranian state controlled Press TV showed one of the speakers saying Khomeini “ ... was the one who emphasized the equality of human beings, the equality of male and female.”

That portrayal is inaccurate, said Amir Hassanpour, retired University of Toronto professor who signed one of the letters.

“It provided a positive picture of Khomeini which does not correspond to reality,” Hassanpour said.

Ehsan Mohammadi, president of the student group that organized the conference, said in an email he did not feel the letter writers were justified in their concerns: “it is against the principles of Multiculturalism, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, freedom of speech which are the significant principles of the Constitution of Canada.”

Critics of the conference, however, say the multicultural argument is specious.

“I think the Islamic Republic is exploiting the goodwill, if not sometimes the naiveté of people in Canada who pride themselves on multiculturalism, on tolerance,” Akhavan said. “Here is a regime that breeds hatred and intolerance which is using universities as a front to propagate its rule.”

Although Carleton’s statement said it played no role except for hosting, its campus security kept some students and protesters from participating.

Ali Tabatabaei, a member of opposition party the National Front of Iran and Iranian Green Movement Ottawa, and a group of five other Iranians, some of whom currently attend Carleton, said he tried to protest the event by bringing posters with pictures of detained political activists in Iran, but was denied entry by university security.

“Security told us they would not even allow us to go close to the doors,” said Tabatabaei.

Carleton media relations stated, “The role of the Department of University Safety at the event is to keep the peace, enforce criminal, provincial and municipal bylaws and university policies.”

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