President Obama needs to realize that actions speak louder than words. The Iranian Administration has again committed a hateful injustice against women, and while Obama gives lip service to women's rights he has again turned a blind eye towards their actions.
Today the Iranian government, acting under the radar because they knew the international community would condemn them, chose to
execute a woman named Delara Darabi who had been tried for a crime as a minor in 2003 (but not necessarily proven guily). Ironically, the joke is on us. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Iran has signed, bans capital punishment for offenders who committed crimes before their 18th birthday. In fact, Zama Coursen-Neff, deputy director of the children's rights division at Human Rights Watch is quoted as saying:
Iran continues to deny that it executes juvenile offenders, but the secret nature of this execution demonstrates that the government knows that these killings are illegal and shameful in the eyes of the world.
And yet to no one's surprise, Obama hasn't condemned them (don't hold your breath). When will the Obama Administration understand that Iran grossly violates human (and women's!) rights and thus we cannot legitimize them by giving them a seat at the negotiating table? By continuing to treat them as an equal the Obama Administration is making a joke of the importance America has always placed on human - and especially women's - rights.
Inaction in the face of injustice speaks louder than all the teleprompted words women have gotten from Obama throughout the past year.
Just this past month Iran
jailed an American woman for eight years under vague charges of espionage after a hasty one-day trial behind closed doors. Meanwhile, the woman told her father she was arrested while buying a bottle of wine. There is little her family can do to help her and meanwhile the U.S. and Obama have complacently sat by and done nothing. The woman, Roxana Saberi, has gone on a hunger strike and still we hear no condemnation of the Iranian government by the Obama Administration. If the Iranians could arbitrarily decide to execute Darabi as a minor what is stopping them from executing Saberi in an equally unlawful manner? And where is our leadership, who should be doing everything in it's power to help not only women but also one of our own? My prayers go out to both women's families during this trying time.
Finally, this brings us to the larger issue of Obama's false promises to women both domestically and abroad. While claiming to stand up for women, his international policy so far has ignored them and his domestic policy has treated them as victims and worked to make them ever reliant on the government as their savior.
Thanks but no thanks, Obama. Hoping won't get you out of this one.
