Ahmadinejad: No Gays, No Oppression of Women in Iran

Controversial Visit From Iranian President Stirs a Range of Reactions From Columbia Students

By RUSSELL GOLDMAN

Sept. 24, 2007 —

When not dodging direct questions, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was defiant in his answers at a forum Monday at Columbia University, maintaining that his country seeks nuclear power only for peaceful purposes, that continued research is necessary to determine the facts of the Holocaust, that Iran is not supporting insurgents in Iraq and that women in his country are treated equally.

Despite fears from some that the controversial leader would go unchallenged in his comments, Columbia President Lee Bollinger quickly took the Iranian president to task in his opening statements, calling him "a petty and cruel dictator" and pointing to a number of well-documented instances in which the Iranian regime has executed children, oppressed women and imprisoned and tortured homosexuals, academics and journalists.

"I doubt you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions," Bollinger said ahead of the Ahmadinejad's comments. "I do expect you to exhibit a fanatical mind-set."

Bollinger called Ahmadinejad's previous statements questioning the existence of the Holocaust "preposterous and ridiculous comments."

Ahmadinejad parried many of the questions put to him directly, discussing the plight of the Palestinians rather than directly answering a question about his previous calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.

When asked about the death penalty Iran imposed on homosexuals, Ahmadinejad discussed the death sentence for drug smugglers. When pushed by moderator and acting dean of the School of International and Public Affairs John Coatsworth, the Iranian president said: "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who has told you we have that."

Ahmadinejad insisted that Iran was seeking nuclear technology solely for the purpose of creating a peaceful energy program and not in an effort to create weapons.

He called the world powers -- the United States, France, Great Britain, China and Russia -- opposed to Iran's nuclear program "monopolistic, selfish powers."

"Why," he asked, "can you have this right and we cannot? We have a right to peaceful nuclear power."

Ahmadinejad, dressed in a dark gray suit rather than his signature khaki jacket, further denied that Iran had funded or aided insurgents in Iraq responsible for the deaths of U.S. troops.

"If someone comes and explodes bombs around you and threatens your president, administration and Congress, it is clear you would call them a terrorist. The Iranian nation is a victim of terror," he said.

Students Unmoved

Students said their opinions of the Iranian president changed little after hearing him speak, with those opposed to his presence and those in support of his policies each picking selective quotes from his address to buttress already established feelings.

Though in most circles Ahmadinejad is criticized chiefly for his positions on the Holocaust, Israel, nuclear weapons and suspected support of terror, his denial of the existence and mistreatment of gays in Iran was the one that left students students buzzing.

"Despite differences in the use of certain Western terms and potential errors in translation, he clearly knew what was being asked and what was going on," said Crystal Gonzalez, 20, an economics major and spokeswoman for the Columbia Queer Alliance.

"At first I wasn't sure about what I thought about him coming, but I think it was a good thing that he did and could spark a debate. & He is clearly a master of avoiding questions," she said, adding, "we disapprove and condemn much of what he said."

Though some of the university's Iranian student body declared themselves pro-Ahmadinejad, others took a more measured position, reproaching the president's human rights policies while also reserving criticism for the Bush administration.

"There is no doubt that the current government is disrespectful of human rights, but war is not an answer," said David Trilling, 29, speaking on behalf of the Iranian students at the School for International and Public Affairs, which hosted the event. "Nearly all of us," he said, "do not accept the comments of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

Other students saved criticism for Bollinger, who condemned many of the Iranian leader's earlier comments in his opening statement.

"Yes, he skirted some of the issues," said senior statistics and political science major Max Bulinski of the Iranian leader, "but I believe he believed much of what he said."

"I think it was a mistake for Bollinger to attack him before he was given a chance to speak. Ahmadinejad was right to say he should have been given the chance to let people form their own opinions."

Those who opposed the president before he spoke found much in his speech to oppose afterward.

"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hid behind rhetoric and philosophical musings about wisdom and knowledge," said Esther Lifshitz, a sophomore majoring in political science.

"This wasn't a dialogue; it was a forum for him to say whatever he wanted. Our podium didn't need to be tarnished by his presence."

Pointed, Peaceful Protests

Protests at Columbia's Morningside Heights campus were measured but calm Monday in the moments leading up to Ahmadinejad's speech.

Students were peacefully posting signs and banners but not confronting one another ahead of Ahmadinejad's speech. As they gathered around the iconic statue of Alma Mater in the center of the campus to listen to a slate of diverse student speakers, other protesters, outside and barred from entering the campus, began to gather.

Though the tenor outside the campus was more heated and more colorful, protests and debate still remained peaceful as the police presence nearly matched the number of protesters.

Outside, along Broadway, professional protesters squared off.

"Ahmadinejad is the Iranian Hitler and Columbia President [Lee] Bollinger must go," shouted Mordecai Levy, president of the Jewish Defense Organization.

The Iranian president's presence invited comparisons to President Bush by a number of activist organizations, which used the opportunity not to protest against Ahmadinejad's human rights record but against the war in Iraq.

"Ahmadinejad's speech comes at a time the U.S. is proposing war in Iran," said Sunsara Taylor of Revolution Newspaper before a large crowd of reporters. "Bush is using Ahmadinejad's record and the crimes of his regime as an excuse. Bush has propped up plenty of Islamic terror regimes -- look at the Taliban and Saudi Arabia."

The on-campus protests were far more measured in their tone.

Students Honor Right to Speak

Despite the controversial Iranian leader's history of making inflammatory statements and his suspected terrorist ties, many students said he had a right to speak at the Ivy League school. And some support for the president was evident in signs and banners posted around the campus alongside those condemning his visit.

"I'm not protesting his right to speak," said sophomore Sarah Brafman, 19. "I'm protesting him and his administration's policies."

Brafman said she was not speaking on behalf of any organization, but she, like many students protesting Ahmadinejad's visit, wore black T-shirts distributed by a group calling itself the Columbia Coalition.

For each sign placed on the wall of a building or on a sidewalk protesting the speech, another supporting the Iranian president, or attempting to paint his regime in a positive light, cropped up next to it.

Posters that purportedly showed two gay men that had been beaten at the hands of the Iranian police hung next to signs that read "Iran had the second most Jewish citizens in the Middle East next to Israel" and that its parliament had Jewish and Zoroastrian lawmakers.

A Policy Protest

Many of the students protesting Ahmadinejad's visit insisted that despite earlier media reports, the tenor of the protest was less about banning the president from campus and more about protesting his policies.

Those policies include being "anti-free speech, anti-women's rights, anti-gay rights and calling for the annihilation of a U.N. member state," said Lauren Steinberg, 20, a junior and a political science major.

"Now that he's here, it is important we challenge him," she said.

A number of those who make up Columbia's Iranian student body, many of them women in head scarves, were also present at the center of campus.

Zeinab Fard, a 25-year-old graduate student studying economics, estimated there were more than 100 Iranian students at Columbia.

"It's good that Ahmadinejad is speaking here directly and not through the filter of the American media, which sometimes twists his words," she said.

"Iranians have never bothered the United States, and America has many times attacked Iran. It is important that Americans hear what he has to say. He has a right to be here," Fard said.

One member of the Iranian community said Ahmadinejad did not represent the values of a large part of the country, but his presence on an American university campus was an important symbol to the American people.

"Many Iranians know he is a bit crazy," said Atefeh, the 26-year-old Iranian wife of an engineering student who asked that only her first name be used.

"He was supported mostly by the poor and uneducated. It is good that he is here because this is an occasion in which many Americans will get to learn about the beautiful country of Iran for the first time."

Despite reports that the Iranian government has supplied Iraqi insurgents with materials to kill Americans, one student, a military veteran who served in Germany outfitting U.S. jets with bombs, said Ahmadinejad had a right to speak.

"It is really important that he's here and a dialogue has opened up," said Aaron Bliese, 27, a creative writing graduate student.

"Didn't we learn anything from the last four years? Maybe if we had sat down with Saddam in the first place, and listened to what he had to say, the war could have been diverted. It's important to have a forum."

International Relations

Bollinger condemns Iranian president as “a petty and cruel dictator”

By Emily Muhlhausen with Stokely Baksh, Nadja Drost and Rachel J. King

A captivated audience listened largely in silence as the president of Iran responded to students’ questions and a scathing critique from the president of Columbia University during a controversial appearance on the university’s Manhattan campus today.

Calling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a “petty and cruel dictator,” Lee Bollinger spent the first 15 minutes of the event posing questions to the Iranian president on his country’s support of terrorist groups, pursuit of enriched uranium and record of human rights violations, as well as his denial of the Holocaust.

Citing Columbia’s close ties to Israel and Ahmadinejad’s previous comments condemning the Jewish state, Bollinger asked, “Do you plan on wiping us off the map, too?”

The event, held as part of the School of International and Public Affairs’ World Leaders Forum, filled the university’s 600-seat Roone Arledge Auditorium to capacity. Inside the campus gates at 116^th Street and Broadway, the walls of the student center were plastered with posters protesting the event and photos of Iranians being hung to death. Columbia’s main pedestrian thoroughfare was closed off by campus security, but hundreds of demonstrators gathered on Broadway.

The speech was simultaneously broadcast to a lively crowd of thousands gathered outside on Columbia’s South Lawn to watch what many students said was likely to be the most memorable event they would experience during their time at the university. Students squinted in the sunlight and craned their necks trying to see the image of Ahmadinejad projected on a mammoth screen bordered by huge loudspeakers.

In the days leading up to today’s event, Bollinger has faced widespread criticism over the decision to invite the Iranian president. He defended the invitation as a celebration of free speech and academic freedom, as well as an opportunity to pose tough questions.

Vigorous applause greeted Bollinger’s closing remark, when he said, “Today I feel the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express their revulsion at what you stand for.”

Before addressing questions taken from the audience read by John Coatsworth, acting dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, Ahmadinejad spoke at length about the value of science and academic freedom. He also accused Bollinger of imparting his preconceived notions on to the audience.

Ahmadinejad said he was taken aback by the unfriendly treatment, unfounded accusations, and the "wave of insults" issued to him by the university's president who called Ahmadinejad "either dangerously provocative or brazenly uneducated."

Perhaps the most provocative of Ahmadinejad’s remarks came in response to a question posed by a student about Iran’s public execution of homosexuals. “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country,” he said. “In Iran we don’t have this phenomenon. I don’t know who told you that we have it.”

The statement was greeted by gasps, boos, and in some cases, laughter.

Opposition to Ahmadinejad’s visited centered around Iran’s human rights violations and his denial of the Holocaust.

Lyubov Bistreff stood alone outside the gates, holding a sign that read “Second Generation Holocaust Survivor.” She was 11 years old, she said, when she fled the Holocaust with her mother, two siblings, and one suitcase. “How can he deny it?” she asked. “I’m a witness. I remember everything.”

“Death to Ahmadin-jihad, the Hitler of Iran,” shouted Mordechai Levy, founder and head of the Jewish Defense Organization, a militant offshoot of the Jewish Defense League, as he handed out fliers at the 116^th Street entrance to the campus.

At rallies both inside and outside the campus gates, some students cautiously supported Ahmadinejad’s visit.

“I am not against him speaking unless he spews hate speech,” said Sheena Shirakhon, 20, a senior who was colorfully clad in a silver bikini and blue shorts with the words “NO WAR” written on the top and “ON IRAN” on the rear. “The only way we can ensure democracy for our own people is if we extend it to others.”

Benjamin Shalva, a fifth-year student at The Jewish Theological Seminary, an affiliate of the university, disagreed. “I’m a strong proponent of free speech, but I don’t think this is a free speech issue,” said Shalva. “I feel abandoned by this institution.”

As a band comprised of freshmen gathered in the center of the campus and sang “This Land is Your Land” and “When the Saints go Marching In” accompanied by a trumpet, harmonica, banjo and trash can drums, Alana Sivin, 19, a sophomore, said she was pleasantly surprised at how many students showed up on the university's manicured lawn.

For her, it's a signal that students are engaged and ready to tread on challenging terrain. "If they weren't here,” she said, “what would that say about us?"

Media Pounce on Ahmadinemania

Talk of war is 'propaganda': Iranian leader

4 days ago

NEW YORK (AFP) — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Monday dismissed talk of war against Iran as "propaganda" and combatively took on US critics who accuse him of denying the Holocaust and backing terrorism.

At the start of a deeply controversial visit to attend UN meetings here, the Iranian leader insisted his Islamic republic had every right to pursue a civilian nuclear program and said "we are a peace-loving nation."

In a tense exchange at New York's Columbia University, Ahmadinejad accused the institute's president Lee Bollinger of a "wave of insults and allegations against me" after Bollinger had introduced the Iranian leader.

Inviting Ahmadinejad to speak at one of America's leading centers of learning "is consistent with the idea that one should know thine enemy ... to confront with the mind of evil," Bollinger had said to cheers from students.

Ahmadinejad grew more relaxed as he got into his stride to accuse the United States of trying to block Iran's legitimate desire to achieve scientific progress in its atomic program.

"We do not believe in nuclear weapons. Period. This goes against the whole grain of humanity," he said.

Smiling and occasionally laughing as he explained Iran's culture and outlook on the world, Ahmadinejad drew the biggest jeers from students for stating that his country has no homosexuals.

"In Iran we don't have this phenomenon, I don't know who you told this," he exclaimed, while also insisting that Iran was a "victim" of terrorism and not an instigator.

Ahmadinejad, who has called for the destruction of Israel and downplayed the Holocaust, said he was open to meeting survivors of the devastating Nazi pogrom against the Jews.

"But let us remember then where did the Holocaust happen to begin with? It happened in Europe. And given that, why is it that the Palestinian people should be displaced?" he said earlier via satellite to Washington's National Press Club.

He also said Iran was working with UN nuclear inspectors "and our activities are legal and for peaceful purposes.

"We think that talk of war is a propaganda tool. Why is there a need for a war?"

France has taken an increasingly strong line in the dispute over Iran's uranium enrichment program, which the United States and its allies fear is an effort to build an atomic bomb.

The UN Security Council has adopted three resolutions against Iran. Two include sanctions because of Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

Speaking at the UN, which Ahmadinejad was to address Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France was ready to help any country that wants to have civilian nuclear power.

"It is the best response to those who, in violation of all the treaties, want to arm themselves with nuclear weapons," he said, as the UN Security Council debates new sanctions over Iran's atomic program.

Asked about Iraq, Ahmadinejad again denied Iran was providing advanced weapons to Shiite extremists to use against US troops.

"We think, in fact, the (US) military should seek an answer to its defeat in Iraq elsewhere," he said, insisting Tehran wanted a stable Iraq on its border.

Outside Columbia, 100 protestors gathered to vent their fury that Ahmadinejad had been given a venue to speak out.

"Stop Ahmadinejad, the Hitler of Iran," chanted one protester, Mordechi Levy of the Jewish Defense Organization, calling for alumni to boycott the university.

The New York Post headlined its story of Ahmadinejad's appearance at Columbia "Madman Guest of Dishonor," after earlier crying "Evil has Landed."

The tabloid press led a public outcry over a request by Ahmadinejad to visit the Ground Zero site of New York's World Trade Center, whose twin towers were felled in the September 11 attacks of 2001.

His desired visit to what many Americans view as hallowed ground was nixed by New York police for security reasons, but in any case it would have been a "travesty," according to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"I think this is somebody who is the president of a country that is probably the greatest sponsor of state-sponsored terrorism, someone who is a Holocaust denier, someone who has talked about wiping other countries off the map," she told the CNBC television network.

But ahead of his UN speech, Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency: "We need to take advantage of such opportunities to present the positions of the Iranian people as they (the Americans) are very keen to hear them."

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