Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami has been invited to Chatham House, London to give a speech.

Khatami has always been introduced to the world by the governments and media in the West as the ‘smiling’ and ‘reformist’ face of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is known for his ‘dialogue of civilizations’ - a term he first used in a speech to the UN General Assembly in September 1998.

But the reality is far from the general picture the western media draws of Mohammad Khatami. During the eight years of his presidency:

More than 200 people were executed;
Scores of women were sentenced to death by stoning;
4 workers from Khatoon Abad (Babak Shahr) copper mine were killed for going on strike;
Students’ demonstration in commemoration of 9 July 2004 was brutally crushed on his orders;
The organized killings of political dissidents by the regime, known as ‘serial murders’, happened when he was in power;
Women had no rights and were constantly harassed. Any protest against the discriminatory laws was answered by whips, arrests, torture, humiliation and imprisonment;
Many homosexuals were arrested and sentenced to long-term imprisonment or execution;
Thousands of people were arrested and tortured for trying to defend their human rights against the Islamic regime;
Hundreds of workers’ strikes and demonstrations and students’ and women’s protests and nurses’ and teachers’ strikes were savagely attacked and suppressed.
The list is endless…

Mohammed Khatami and the regime whose president he was for eight years have done nothing but organising terror and murder and oppression. Khatami and all other leaders of the Islamic Republic are criminals and must be tried in international courts for their crimes against humanity.

During the eight years of Khatami’s presidency, the persecution and murder of Iranian people continued non-stop. Inviting Khatami and providing him with a platform to speak and treating him as a respectable politician is an insult to the people of Iran, and must be categorically condemned. Khatami has been the president of a regime of repression, execution, torture and violence against the people of Iran. His government has helped Islamic terrorism in the Middle East. Inviting him as a ‘respectable statesman’ for ‘a civilized dialogue’ is disgusting and unacceptable.

The Worker-communist Party of Iran is against giving the criminal leaders of the Islamic regime any opportunity to travel around the world and pretend that they are opening civilized dialogues, while at the same time murdering and torturing people and supporting international Islamic terrorism.

We call upon all concerned organisations and individuals and international human rights organisations to make their protest heard and to demand Khatami’s arrest and trial as a criminal.

Please send your protest letter to:

The Chatham House Press Office: shardy@chathamhouse.org.uk

Foreign Secretary: email: foraffcom@parliament.uk , Fax: 020 7219 5365

When:
Wednsday 1 November 2006
4:30 – 6:30

Where:
Chatham House
10 St James's Square
London SW1Y 4LE
Nearset tube station: Piccadilly Circus /Green Park

Tel: 07984445278 / 07886973423

Worker-communist Party of Iran - UK Organisation
International Federation of Iranian Refugees- UK
Communist Youth Organisation –UK
Organization for Women’s Liberation

2/10/2006