{"id":900,"date":"2007-05-18T10:57:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-18T10:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html"},"modified":"2007-05-18T10:57:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-18T10:57:00","slug":"rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html","title":{"rendered":"Rose Marie Berger: The Tehran Two-Step"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the Iranian government plays a complicated game of international roulette regarding its nuclear power and weapons capacity, its role in stabilizing (or de-stabilizing Iraq), and its work to stem the flow of drugs through the Middle East, one thing – sadly – has remained consistent: human rights abuses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Less than three weeks before the much touted U.S-Iran meetings<\/a> on May 28, Iranian security forces have abducted and imprisoned Haleh Esfandiari<\/a>, the 67-year-old director of the Middle East Program at the Washington, D.C.-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars<\/a>. Dr. Esfandiari, who has lived in the U.S since 1980 and traveled to Iran to visit her 93-year-old mother, has been held for a week at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer arrest,\u201d reported a London-based Iranian agency<\/a>, \u201ccame amid increasing restrictions on Iranian rights groups, particularly women’s organizations, and other critics by the hard-line government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iranian authorities have stepped up their warnings that the U.S. aims to use internal critics to destabilize the Iranian government amid the mounting tensions between the two countries.\u201d Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi<\/a>, who has herself been imprisoned at Evin, has agreed to defend Esfandiari through Ebadi\u2019s organization, the Human Rights Defenders Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cGracefully she approached, in a dress of bright blue silk,\u201d writes Iranian poet Simin Behbahani<\/a>. \u201cWith an olive branch in her hand, and many tales of sorrows in her eyes. Running to her, I greeted her, and took her hand in mine: Pulses could still be felt in her veins; warm was still her body with life.\u201d We pray for Haleh Esfandiari<\/a>\u2019s safety and the protection of her grace and dignity.<\/p>\n

If Iran is going to make a place for itself – and its 70 million citizens, 60 percent of whom are under 30<\/a> – in the world, then it must reclaim and restore a vision of government and society that preferences human rights over state secrecy and diversity of opinion and thought over social control. Only then can human dignity be elevated and souls mature as God intended. +Sign the petition for Haleh Esfandiari\u2019s release<\/a><\/p>\n

Rose Marie Berger<\/strong> is an Associate Editor of Sojourners<\/em><\/a> magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the Iranian government plays a complicated game of international roulette regarding its nuclear power and weapons capacity, its role in stabilizing (or de-stabilizing Iraq), and its work to stem the flow of drugs through the Middle East, one thing – sadly – has remained consistent: human rights abuses. Less than three weeks before the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":379,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immigration"],"yoast_head":"\nRose Marie Berger: The Tehran Two-Step - God's Politics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rose Marie Berger: The Tehran Two-Step - God's Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While the Iranian government plays a complicated game of international roulette regarding its nuclear power and weapons capacity, its role in stabilizing (or de-stabilizing Iraq), and its work to stem the flow of drugs through the Middle East, one thing – sadly – has remained consistent: human rights abuses. Less than three weeks before the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God's Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-05-18T10:57:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\/images\/blog\/070517_esfandiari.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"gp_intern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Rose Marie Berger: The Tehran Two-Step - God's Politics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Rose Marie Berger: The Tehran Two-Step - God's Politics","og_description":"While the Iranian government plays a complicated game of international roulette regarding its nuclear power and weapons capacity, its role in stabilizing (or de-stabilizing Iraq), and its work to stem the flow of drugs through the Middle East, one thing – sadly – has remained consistent: human rights abuses. Less than three weeks before the…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html","og_site_name":"God's Politics","article_published_time":"2007-05-18T10:57:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\/images\/blog\/070517_esfandiari.jpg"}],"author":"gp_intern","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html","name":"Rose Marie Berger: The Tehran Two-Step - God's Politics","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\/images\/blog\/070517_esfandiari.jpg","datePublished":"2007-05-18T10:57:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-05-18T10:57:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#\/schema\/person\/cdd0d36f3f2e1667662d6db39e7e2fba"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\/images\/blog\/070517_esfandiari.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.sojo.net\/images\/blog\/070517_esfandiari.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/rose-marie-berger-tehran-two-step.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Rose Marie Berger: The Tehran Two-Step"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/","name":"God's Politics","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#\/schema\/person\/cdd0d36f3f2e1667662d6db39e7e2fba","name":"gp_intern","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"gp_intern"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/author\/gp_intern"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/379"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}