To listen to Shirin Ebadi's story is to grasp how dramatically Iran has changed in recent months. The Nobel laureate has not been back to Iran since the country's disputed June election. In November, authorities confiscated her Nobel Peace Prize medal from a bank safe-deposit box. After Christmas they arrested her sister in Tehran. Her husband, who is still there, had his passport taken away. Authorities then returned it, only for him to discover that the returned passport was a forgery. I recently had the chance to speak with Ebadi in depth about developments in her country. Now, Iran's most famous dissident tells me she has no doubt that she would be arrested if she returned home.
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Last summer the thousands of protesters who poured into Teheran's streets were chanting, "Give us our vote back." But it's no longer just about a fraudulent election. Today crowds in various locations across the country shout "Death to the supreme leader," and reform clerics who had previously insisted that the system remain untouchable now call for free elections, free media, and freedom of speech and assembly.
Ebadi seems to be traveling a similar route. The 62-year-old human rights lawyer had denounced the Bush administration's democracy-promotion efforts. She sought reform of the system, not its demise, she would say. She deplored the "axis of evil" rhetoric and consistently attacked the Bush State Department's initiative to funnel $75 million to oppositionists and civil society groups. She hasn't changed her mind on this point. Ebadi told me she continues to believe that outside aid for the democracy movement is a mistake. But it's hard not to notice, as the situation in Iran has changed, that Ebadi's views are evolving.
In our conversation, she emphasized repeatedly, "You cannot do business with the regime." She is convinced that Iran's leadership is not negotiating in good faith on the nuclear issue and would not abide by any agreement reached with the United States and the European Union.
Ebadi once outspokenly supported U.S.-Iranian talks without preconditions. She still supports dialogue. But she wants that dialogue to involve human rights and a strategy to support civil society and the rule of law. She thinks that only an Iranian government that respects human rights and rules by consent can be a proper, credible partner for the West to discuss Iran's nuclear program.
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