Wednesday 1 November 2006
From 4:30 – 6:30pm
Chatham House
10 St James’s Square
London SW1Y 4LE
Nearest tube station: Piccadilly Circus /Green Park

Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami has been invited by Chatham House London and the University of St Andrews to deliver a speech and receive an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws.

Khatami has always been introduced to the world as the smiling and reformist face of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is famous for his ‘dialogue of civilizations’, a term he first used in a speech to the UN general assembly in September 1998.

But reality is far from the western media’s portrayals of Mohammad Khatami. During the eight years of his presidency:

· more than 200 people were executed,
· tenfold of women were sentenced to death by stoning,
· 4 workers from Khatoon Abad (Babak Shahir) were killed for going on strike,
· Students’ demonstration in commemoration of 9 July 2004 was brutally crushed on his orders,
· The organised killings of dissidents known as the ‘serial murders’ took place 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,
And the list is endless…

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

During the eight years of Khatami’s presidency, the persecution and murder of the Iranian people continued non-stop. As far as the Iranian people are concerned, inviting Khatami and providing him with podiums to speak and treating him as a respectable politician is condemned. Khatami has, doubtlessly incited violence against people in Iran and his government has helped Islamic terrorism in the Middle East; inviting him as a respectable person for civilized dialogue is despicable 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 they are murdering and torturing Iranian people and clearly supporting international Islamic terrorism.

We call upon all freedom lovers, individuals and international human bodies to make their protest heard and to demand Khatami’s arrest and international trial as a criminal.

Please send your protest letters to:
The Chatham House Press Office: shardy@chathamhouse.org.uk
Foreign Secretary: email: foraffcom@parliament.uk, fax: 020 7219 5365
University of St Andrews, Menzies Campbell, Chancellor, ns30@st-andrews.ac.uk

For more information about the protest call 07950924434.

Worker-communist Party of Iran – UK Organisation
International Federation of Iranian Refugees- UK
Communist Youth Organisation –UK