­ President Hassan Rouhani of Iran arrived in Italy on tuesday where he met with Pope Francis and Italy’s prime minister to discuss new business arrangements and cooperation between the two nations. In italy President Rouhani signed deals for several Billion dollars. On Wednesday President Rouhani arrived in Paris to meet with President Hollande of France, as well as other business people. During his stay in France, Rouhani signed a deal to buy more than 100 commercial airplanes, as the sanctions on Iran limited their abilities for commercial flight. In July, 2015 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declared that Iran has fulfilled all the necessary steps to ensure that the only thing that is nuclear there is peaceful nuclear energy. This means that the sanctions on Iran by the UN are lifted. Now, Fast forward to January 24th 2016. This is the first time in more than 10 years an Iranian president have visited Europe. It seems that Iran isn’t sitting around when it comes to taking advantage of the lifting of their sanctions. Although this trip has been successful for Iran, France and Italy, it have not passed without it criticism due to Iran’s countless violations of human rights. To be true, the violations of the human rights are more than what can be tolerated by a member of the United Nations. Iran is also one of the signatory nations of the legally binding human rights document; The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In the Amnesty International’s report on the state of the world’s Human Rights for the period of 2014/15, we can see that the violations cover many fundamental human rights; The right to life is constantly broken during executions of people under the age of eighteen that are both inhuman, often even public. Punishments by amputism is also practiced, as well as torture, which is directly violates the right of freedom from torture, cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. There are also limitations to the right of expression through media censorship, the right to assemble and political participation. Opposition to the government often leads to loosing the right to go to college. Women are systematically discriminated by enforced dress code and other limitations to fundamental freedoms. The right to privacy is violated through legal punishment for adultery, sex outside of marriage or the practice of other sexual orientation or gender identity. These are are a few out of many violations. It is worth mentioning that, according to Amnesty’s report, the government tried to relax some restrictions that violated the human rights, but it angered strong conservative powers within the nation. Taking these violations into notice, and the fact that Iran has signed the legally binding ICCPR, the UN has more than ground enough to organize new sanctions on Iran. On the other hand, how effective are sanctions really when it comes to protecting the human rights? In the case with Iran the sanctions served its main purpose; to prevent Iran of building nuclear weapons of mass destruction. And if we look to North Korea we can see that the longer the sanctions are held, the less stable they get. It does not seem at all like they’re planning on treating the population any better and they keep pushing their limits when it comes to nuclear weapons. So, when it comes to Iran’s human rights violations, what can we do? Well, one of the reasons that Rouhani was elected President of Iran in 2013 was his promise to improve the human rights in Iran. Even though that the promise haven’t been kept, we can see that the people of Iran want to change their situation. President Rouhani’s visit to Europe, which included business deals to modernize Ians commercial air travels, have shown us that Iran is eager to take part in the internationalized global society. Understanding this, we should think one feature of the globalized world that might be quite interesting in the case of Iran; the internet. When people hear about nations with internet censorship, people tend to think about China and Russia, but Iran as well, has one of the biggest internet and media censorships in the world. This censorship covers many big international newspages, naturally pages with pornographic content, and of course, major social medias like Twitter and Facebook. Today, many Iranians use anti­censorship software, which is said to be easy to find to get a broader use of the internet, which allows them to access, amongst others, facebook. Now, let’s play the “what if game”. What if, letting Iran take bigger part in the international society leads to them opening up internet restrictions. Many sources already state that there are many people in Iran taking advantage of social media through anti­censorship software. Any modernized country needs the internet, and bringing Iran into the globalized world might lead to the globalized world bringing broader internet to the people of Iran. The internet is right now bringing the modern young generation together, shaping a global society that current leaders tend to ignore. A society where “memes” are shared all the time. these memes are often cartoons, much like Charlie Hebdo, only broader, more outreaching and with a much bigger audience. But the generation, let’s call them the cold war generation, currently governing this planet don’t even pay attention to this. This is a phenomenon bringing together an entire worldwide generation. A generation where similar values are more common, a society where the “online public opinion” is the idea that we need to protect the human rights. Online you can find that the youth of China, Russia, and I’m betting even Iran want to change their nations. And they will, when it’s their turn to rule.

Point being; even though the Iranian government violates the human rights, if we let them open their society to the globalized world, pulling them out of their isolation, we will also globalize the generation of 15­25 year olds that will take over in 10­20 years by introducing them to the online society, bringing them instantly into the 21. century. While North Korea’s sanctions keep them in the 20th century, let’s bring Iran into the 21st.

By Christer Myklebust