The United Nations should focus on pressing the Tehran regime to restore democracy and human rights rather than imposing economic sanctions on Iran for its nuclear programme, says Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian opposition activist.

“A military attack or economic sanctions would be to the detriment of the people of Iran,” she said, adding that the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad had ways to circumvent further economic measures and their unintended impact might be to rally people behind the regime.

She called, however, for action against western companies that she said were supporting actively the censorship and repression of the opposition movement.

The UN Security Council should focus not only on the nuclear programme “but also put human rights and democracy on your agenda. Non-democratic countries can be as dangerous to world peace as an atomic bomb.”

Ms Ebadi, who has been travelling abroad since leaving Iran for a conference on the eve of last year’s presidential election, said western states should put as much effort towards restricting companies that help the regime repress the opposition as they do into tracking down banks doing business with Iran.

Tehran should be obliged to abide by international obligations to protect human rights as well as by its nuclear commitments, said Ms Ebadi. “Assuming Iran agrees on the nuclear programme, will the west worry about what happens to the people of Iran?” she asked.

The human rights lawyer, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, named Nokia-Siemens and France’s Eutelsat as among a number of companies she said were helping the regime. A Nokia-Siemens spokeswoman was quoted last week as denying opposition claims that telecoms technology it supplied to Iran could be used to monitor internet traffic.

Ms Ebadi said Eutelsat was continuing to supply satellite communications to Iranian government broadcasters while cutting services to western organisations broadcasting into Iran, including the BBC, that were being jammed by the Iranian authorities.

As the US Senate and House of Representatives prepared to discuss combining their own legislation on Iran sanctions, the US Government Accountability Office last week criticised flaws in US statistics that are intended to keep track of trade with Iran.

It noted inadequacies in the Treasury’s filings and said: “Treasury’s information systems weaken the ability of the government to assess compliance with Iran sanctions.” Go to Financial Times.

Iran’s leading hardline newspaper, Kayhan, was in court to face defamation charges on Sunday from a number of plaintiffs, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights campaigner Shirin Ebadi.

A close aide to hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the controversial Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, was among the plaintiffs, complaining that the paper had accused him of an “anti-national act.”

Ebadi has accused Kayhan of “defamation” and “spreading lies” over its description of her as a “Shiite but Bahai supporter,” alleging that the Nobel laureate backed the beliefs of the banned faith whose followers are persecuted in Iran, ISNA news agency reported.

Two other human rights activists, jailed journalist Emadeddin Baghi and lawyer Shadi Sadr, pressed similar charges.

In the trial which opened on Sunday, the paper can face a fine or suspension if found guilty.

However, Kayhan is one of the main backers of the country’s Islamic regime and its editor, Hossein Shariatmadari, is an influential hardliner appointed by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iranian reformists and dissidents have long been the target of vitriolic attacks by Kayhan, which accuses them of being foreign stooges.

Several reformist journals critical of the government have been hit by frequent closures under Ahmadinejad, especially after his disputed re-election in June. Go to AFP.

Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi dismissed concerns Sunday that Iran’s opposition movement is faltering after a government clampdown foiled plans to hold mass demonstrations last week on the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Thursday’s crackdown in Tehran “was a demonstration of the weakness of the government,” and not a sign that the opposition was weakening, she said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Ebadi praised the opposition for its resilience, despite the threat of government violence.

“The 11th of February was a great victory for the (opposition) Green Movement in Iran,” she said. Despite the danger, “people took to the streets. That itself is very important.”

Ebadi said the Iranian authorities had shown their own weakness in deploying “all their financial and military resources to take over the streets and stop demonstrations.”

She said this style of full-on repression suggests the Islamic regime is nearing the end of its rope.

“Under the current circumstances, how can you possibly say that the movement is becoming weaker and the government is becoming stronger?” she said through an interpreter. Go to AP.

Like thousands of Iranian exiles, she will be keenly watching to see what happens on Thursday. The anniversary of Iran’s revolution is usually a triumphant affair for Iran’s leaders, as thousands of loyalists are bussed in from across the nation to parade along the wide boulevards of downtown Tehran.

State television is taken over for the day by footage of crowds enthusiastically paying obeisance to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and raising their fists to chant “Death to America” on cue.

This year, however, their conservative black chadors and pressed grey shirts will be infused with flashes of colour, if the opposition Green Movement manages to carry out their plan of gatecrashing the official celebrations.

Two opposition leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, have called on their supporters to stage their own demonstrations in an effort to prove to the regime that it has lost popular support.

The anniversary will be seen by both sides as a key trial of strength. Protesters hope to revive the crowds of hundreds of thousands who marched through Tehran in the days following last June’s presidential election, complaining that the vote had been rigged. Their protests were quickly and violently crushed, but demonstrations have sporadically continued in defiance of mass arrests, beatings and show trials, to the regime’s intense embarrassment.

“The government wants to create an atmosphere of fear to stop people taking part in any more demonstrations,” said Mrs Ebadi. “I’m so sad and sorry that they issued the death penalty. I also think the same about the others who are now on trial. Their only crime is that they said they did not accept the election.”

Last week a leading commander of the Revolutionary Guards, which has taken the lead role in suppressing unrest, said anybody demonstrating this Thursday would “be severely dealt with”.

Ordinary Iranians interviewed by The Sunday Telegraph in Tehran said they were willing to answer the Green Movement’s call this week and risk the consequences.

Hanieh, a single mother whose full name cannot be given to protect her safety, said she would attend despite being beaten in previous demonstrations. “We will go in small groups and the idea is to keep our discipline and silence no matter what, and we will wear green.”

Last time she protested she saw repression from close up. “The crowd was charged by club-wielding security forces,” she said. “I was beaten repeatedly across the arms, back, ribs and legs.”

Ali, 53, joined the demonstrations against the government he helped put in power as a student protester in 1979.

“I’m not sure if these protests will go anywhere,” he said. “But I also believe we have to continue otherwise the government will think that it has bullied us into backing down. We would allow the country to move towards an even worse type of oppression.” Go to Telegraph.

ST: “Are you in any danger from the regime?” SE: “I’ve never been contacted by the regime directly. But they contacted my family and friends and said ‘wherever she is, we can get rid of her’.

“I don’t take the threat seriously. If people want to do something they don’t talk about it beforehand. Their main aim is to scare me off doing my work properly.

“Obviously, I don’t want to make my enemies happy, so I continue with my work inside the law.

“They threatened my husband and my sister that if I continue with my work they will arrest both of them. My sister was detained for three weeks. They were not tortured physically, but to arrest people because of something someone else has done is a form of emotional torture.”

ST: “Do you think people should demonstrate against the regime this Thursday?”

SE: “I believe people should take part in the demonstration. They should ask for their rights, but they should do it peacefully. Obviously the regime wants people to be violent because it gives them an excuse to crack down, and people must not give them that excuse.”

ST: “What do you think people can achieve by protesting against the regime?” SE: “The government can understand and realise how many people are against it. I hope the government realises and understands what the people want from it.

“First, one of the people’s demands is the freedom of all those who were arrested during the protests. Secondly, they want a free election for the presidency. The majority of people have one thing in common and that is agreement with those two points. That is the minimum of what people want.”

Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel peace laureate, has told Al Jazeera that her sister was released from prison in Iran.

Noushin Ebadi was released on Thursday after being arrested during opposition protests at the end of last year, her sister said on Al Jazeera’s Frost Over the World programme.

Noushin had been arrested at her home in Tehran in an attempt to intimidate her, Shirin said. Go to Al Jazeera.

IND:  What a welcome change of heart on her part!  It would be great if she would now try to meet with President Obama in the Oval office and hold a joint White House press conference – emphasizing Iran’s human rights.

Ebadi told me she continues to believe that outside aid for the democracy movement is a mistake. But it’s hard not to notice, as the situation in Iran has changed, that Ebadi’s views are evolving.

In our conversation, she emphasized repeatedly, “You cannot do business with the regime.” She is convinced that Iran’s leadership is not negotiating in good faith on the nuclear issue and would not abide by any agreement reached with the United States and the European Union.

Ebadi once outspokenly supported U.S.-Iranian talks without preconditions. She still supports dialogue. But she wants that dialogue to involve human rights and a strategy to support civil society and the rule of law. She thinks that only an Iranian government that respects human rights and rules by consent can be a proper, credible partner for the West to discuss Iran’s nuclear program.

She insists at the same time, though, that Iranians will endure considerable hardship if they think the endgame is greater respect for human rights.

Her effusive praise for Obama, however, sits side by side with her awkward acknowledgment that democracy and human rights are not yet an administration priority.

Ebadi says it’s nonsense to think this was ever merely about a small group of educated elites in northern Tehran. The democracy movement in other cities is active and growing, she says. By all accounts, fissures are beginning to emerge in the ruling class. There are signs that the secular and religious opposition have begun to cooperate. If this continues, it would be a dramatic development.

It’s still possible that the government will reach a compromise with the protest movement and succeed in co-opting key members of the opposition. But with each week bringing new violence and fresh reports of arrests, beatings, and rapes, this scenario seems increasingly unlikely. Go to Foreign Policy.

IND:  Excellent comments by Ms. Ebadi.

The recent intensification of protests in Iran has been met with more arrests. Among those detained: the sister of Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize–winning human-rights lawyer. NEWSWEEK’s Anita Kirpalani spoke by telephone with Ebadi, in exile in the U.K. since June 2009, about her perspective on the green revolution. Excerpts:

Are the protests growing?
Yes, day by day. They have even spread to smaller cities and there are demonstrations every day in universities. People have gained courage and will not give up their rights despite the fact that, should they protest, they will be arrested or shot at in the streets.

What exactly are they protesting?
The sad conditions that this government has created. People are getting poorer; they do not have security; censorship is very strong; civil and political liberties have been taken away; unemployment is very high, and so is official corruption. All of this has made the people angry.

But aren’t these claims old claims?
Yes, but as the regime gets older, the number of its opponents grows. If, 20 years ago, only 20 percent of the people were against the government, now it is 80 percent.

Are the conservatives divided to the point that some would favor compromise, even if that means sacrificing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Differences have appeared. They are so frightened of losing power that each one tries to blame the other and to diffuse the danger through the sacrifice of one or several people.

How do you see things evolving?
It is hard to predict because it depends on a number of variables, including the situation of Iran’s neighbors, oil prices, and U.N. resolutions. However, in the end, the government has only two options. It will either listen to the will of the people, or it will fall. Go to Newsweek.

The Iranian government’s efforts to suppress anti-government demonstrations will only increase the opposition’s will, Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi told CNN Monday.

“The heavier the crackdown, the more determined people will be to protest, as events in the past have shown. The higher levels of crackdown have radicalized the people,” the Iranian lawyer and human rights activist said.

But sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program will not damage the Islamic regime — in fact, they “only increase the nationalistic sentiments of the Iranian people,” she warned.

Sanctions should “target issues that impact the government and not those that affect the people. For example, recently the Iranian government, it has been said, will import anti-riot tanks. Not from the United States but from China and Russia,” Ebadi said.

“So sanctions should aim to stop these transactions, not to enhance the ability of the Iranian state to increase the crackdown on the people,” Ebadi said, speaking to CNN’s Zain Verjee by telephone. Go to CNN.

Rooz: What eventually led to the arrest of your sister? Had agents bothered her before the arrest?

Shirin Ebadi (Ebadi): Unfortunately the ministry of intelligence has been creating problems for my family members, particularly my sister and husband and has threatened them with the goal of stopping my human rights activities. My family members have in turn made it clear to them that Shirin Ebadi would do whatever she believes in and that her activities have nothing to do with them. But the intelligence minister approached my sister several times and summoned her to the ministry. On one occasion its agents told my sister to change her residence which is located in the same building as mine so that she was not near me. Obviously my sister would ignore such a request. They specifically told her that she had to stop communicating with me. This is despite the fact that my sister does not have my telephone number which is because I do not have a permanent telephone number as I am constantly traveling from one place to another. I used to call her once or twice every month to ask how she was doing. But the intelligence ministry had told her that even this level of contact had to stop. She of in turn asked them how they expected her to tell me that she did not have the right to call me. Finally they threatened that they would arrest her if she continued with her ways. Go to Rooz Online.

Iranian intelligence officials have detained the sister of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer and human rights activist said.

Ebadi said Monday that three men and a woman arrived at the Tehran home she shared with her sister, searched the house and seized Nushin Ebadi, 47, and her computer.

“They have detained her so I stop my work,” Shirin Ebadi, 62, told CNN’s Reza Sayah in a phone call from London. “She has done nothing wrong. She’s not involved in human rights work, and she’s never participated in any of the protests.” Go to CNN.

Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre and Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt express serious concern over the Iranian authorities’ treatment of Shirin Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts to promote human rights in Iran.

“Shirin Ebadi is one of many courageous people who use peaceful means to try to increase respect for human rights in Iran. We react very strongly to the treatment to which Shirin Ebadi has been subjected,” say Foreign Ministers Støre and Bildt, in a statement on the day of the Nobel Award Ceremony.

“We were dismayed to receive the news that the Iranian authorities had recently deprived Ms Ebadi of the medal and diploma given to her when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. The medal and diploma have now been restored to her, but her situation continues to be serious. Ms Ebadi is prevented from working as a defender of human rights in her home country and the Iranian authorities have closed the Defenders of Human Rights Centre of which she was co-founder. The confiscation of the medal and the numerous threats directed at her, her family and her colleagues give cause for great concern and are yet another example of the worsened human rights situation in Iran since the election in June this year. “ Go to original article.

Norway and Sweden have censured Iran for its treatment of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.

They say that her situation is of “great concern”. The rebuke comes on the day Nobel prizes are presented.

Scandinavian officials say Iran confiscated the Nobel medal awarded to Ms Ebadi but later returned it. Tehran previously denied these claims.

Ms Ebadi has criticised Tehran’s handling of unrest after June’s disputed presidential election.

In a joint statement, foreign ministers Carl Bildt of Sweden and Jonas Gahr Stoere of Norway said: “We react very strongly to the treatment to which Shirin Ebadi has been subjected.” Go to BBC.

In a calm but defiant interview with ABC News, Iranian human rights activist and 2003 Nobel Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi said the current Iranian regime has “no popular base”. “I promise you, this regime will not last,” she said. Pressed as to how a largely a popular protest movement can challenge a regime which seemingly has all the cards – police, military, basij paramilitaries, Revolutionary Guards – she said the movement is becoming more widespread despite the crackdown, spreading from Tehran to other cities. She said political backing from prominent religious leaders adds strength, and that while political leaders such as Mirhossein Mousavi have been largely quiet, “the real leaders are the people.”

Asked about the international community’s renewed push for economic sanctions against the regime, Ebadi said sanctions will “harm the people and will not bring about the collapse of the regime”, explaining that the regime will use sanctions as a pretext crack down further. (She also opposes a military attack for the same reasons.)Her preferred remedy: that the US and the West express “verbal support only” for the opposition and seek to stop we apons sales to the government. Go to ABC News.