Yesterday Red Cross officials in Tehran and also Iraq's ambassador
to Tehran visited Jalal Sharafi in the hospital and saw the effects of
the torture on his body. They confirmed that the wounds on the body
of the second secretary of Iran's embassy in Baghdad were caused by
torture done by American-led forces.

This reality, which is already documented by various medical evidence and has been confirmed by the Red Cross representative in Tehran, shows that the American occupying forces in Iraq have not only kidnapped the second secretary of Iran's embassy in Baghdad as well as five Iranian diplomats in Irbil, Iraq--a violation of international law in the area of diplomatic responsibility, including the Vienna Convention--but in torturing the second secretary of Iran's Baghdad embassy they have also violated international law with regard to the treatment of civilians, including the 1969 Vienna Convention, with regard to the rights of detainees.

Yet the American government, which considers itself a defender of human rights and international conventions, attacked and occupied Iraq with the slogans of democracy, freedom and the development of human rights. This shows the clear contradiction between the policies of America and the Western governments in dealing with international issues such as human rights.

This piece is an example of the kind of anti-American propaganda that is so common in the Middle East these days. This sort of thing is profoundly damaging to American interests, prestige and influence, and it never stops. The US government should respond aggressivly to media assaults such as this, with more than simple denials. The American response to this kind of programming should be to get the Iraqi governmet or someone else who knows to state publicly, with names, who kidnapped Jalal Sharafi. Iif it really was the US, the US government should admit it and explain why.

The US government should also name the five Iranians who were captured in Irbil, give their names and state why they are being held. It is not enough simply to say they were not diplomats. This will deprive the Iranians of this incident as an excuse to boycott the forthcoming Iraq conference in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Our government needs to take seriously the fact with in the minds of millions of the people it most needs to influence, it has lost the moral high ground. This can be recovered with respect for the public, both in and out of the US, and simple candor.

Crossposted to Satellite News (Iran)