AKBAR GANJI'S SENTENCE UP MARCH 17

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DUBAI 001075

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

LONDON FOR TSOU; PARIS FOR ZEYA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 2/27/2016
TAGS: PHUM PGOV IR SOCI
SUBJECT: AKBAR GANJI'S SENTENCE UP MARCH 17


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CLASSIFIED BY: Jason L Davis, Consul General, Dubai, UAE.
REASON: 1.4 (d)

1.(C) Summary: Iranian political prisoner Akbar Ganji is
eligible for release March 17. It is not yet clear whether he
will be released or whether the government will find a reason to
keep him in jail. If he is released, he may be "asked" to leave
the country. A human rights activist is calling on the USG to
send Iran a clear message of its continued concern about Ganji's
fate, as well as to do more with Iranian dissidents who have
left Iran in recent years. End summary

2.(C) According to Iranian press, political prisoner Akbar
Ganji's six-year prison sentence expires March 17. A U.S.-based
official from Human Rights Watch (in the UAE to prepare a report
on migrant labor in UAE) told PolEconChief it was likely Ganji
could be brought up on new charges related to his anti-regime
writings smuggled out of prison. (Note: In Iran it is not
uncommon for political prisoners to be sent back to prison on
new charges after their release.) The official urged the USG to
publicly call for Ganji's release. He said the Iranian people
get confused when the USG takes up a human rights case and then
drops it. He added the Iranian government counts on us losing
interest or getting distracted. In an open letter February 20
published online, Ganji's wife says Iranian officials have
abandoned him in solitary confinement in a prison section
controlled by IRGC intelligence, despite his continuing health
problems. She writes that they are trying to forget about him
and are trying to get the public to forget him as well.

3.(C) An Iran-based political and economic analyst predicted, in
contrast, that Ganji would likely be released at the end of his
sentence and asked to leave the country. Bijan Khajehpour
(please protect),who recently spoke on Iran at a number of
Washington think tanks, told PolEconChief that this prediction
was based on the government's behavior in similar cases in the
past. He cited dissident journalists/former political prisoners
Massoud Behnoud, who now writes for Rooz.online, an online
newspaper based outside of Iran, and Ebrahim Nabavi, an exiled
satirist who now writes for the Internet site Gooya, as well as
Rooz.

4.(C) When asked why the Iranian government would allow Ganji to
leave, Khajehpour said Iranian officials are only afraid of
people they think have credibility in the eyes of both the elite
and the wider population and who can thus mobilize the masses.
The government believes dissidents lose this status once they
leave the country.

5.(C) The HRW official shared the view that the Iranian
government believes dissidents become inactive or ineffective
when they leave the country. The HRW official blamed the lack
of a good network to absorb Iranian dissidents abroad and make
effective use of them as part of the problem. The Iranian
government knows that as new immigrants, they will likely have
to devote most of their efforts to getting by economically (the
HRW official cited a famous Iranian cartoonist who still
publishes on Rooz.online, but works nights in Canada at a
drycleaners to make ends meet.) The HRW official also accused
the Iranian government of threatening the families of expatriate
dissidents, citing the case of a blogger who initially spoke out
against the government after he was allowed to leave the country
but then went mute after his father was detained in Iran. The
HRW official pressed the USG to make better use of this new wave
of Iranian dissidents abroad, perhaps by employing them at VOA's
FARSI television program.

6.(C) Comment: We agree that now would be an opportune time for
the U.S. and others to remind the Iranian government that the
international community continues to follow Ganji's case and
expects him to be released when his sentence is up. Although
Iran prickles when it feels it is being told what to do, there
have been several cases in recent years when it has buckled
under public pressure on human rights cases. It is hard to say
what the short-term impact past USG statements on Ganji's case
have had, but the majority of our interlocutors believe that
overall, public statements on specific human rights cases in
Iran yield long-term positive results. There may be elements of
the government looking for an excuse to keep Ganji under lock
and key. Other parts, however, may recognize that releasing him
after his sentence is served does not cause them to lose face
and can in fact get rid of one albatross around their neck in
the eyes of the world community.

7.(C) Comment continued: We think there is merit in the idea of
recruiting more newly-arrived Iranian dissidents to work on
VOA's expanded Iran programming, although those people who hope
to return in the near future to Iran are unlikely to want to

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affiliate themselves so closely with the USG. We would also
suggest searching out dissidents from Iran's various ethnic
groups to help produce programming in their native languages to
target those populations.
DAVIS