Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi: Sanctions Okay, Nuke Program Is 'Propaganda'

[bananas]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/21/iran-shirin-ebadi-sanctions-nuclear-program-nobel_n_852275.html

Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi: Sanctions Okay, Nuke Program Is 'Propaganda'

First Posted: 04/21/11 07:32 PM ET Updated: 04/21/11 08:03 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- Iran’s leading human rights activist and its only Nobel Peace Prize winner softened her stance against economic sanctions aimed at the Islamist state -- even as she abandoned her defense of its nuclear program.

<snip>

Ebadi had previously toed the official line on the Iranian nuclear program -- that it is the country's inalienable, sovereign right. "Aside from being economically justified,” she once said, “it has become a cause of national pride for an old nation with a glorious history. No Iranian government, regardless of its ideology or democratic credentials, would dare to stop” it.

<snip>

“The claim that nuclear energy is the national pride of Iran is not true at all, and I don’t accept it. It’s the propaganda of the Ahmadinejad government,” she said. “The people of Iran have so many problems in their daily life they can’t even pay their gas bill. They don’t have time to think about stuff like that.”

Ebadi added that pursuing nuclear power -- even for peaceful ends -- no longer makes economic sense. And, as the disaster in Japan showed, it poses a threat to human safety because Iran’s nuclear facilities also lie on fault lines susceptible to earthquakes.

“The people of Iran don’t want another Fukushima,” she said, referring to the ruined Japanese power plant.

<snip>

Glad she's come to her sense on this issue.
:applause:
The Bushehr project has so many problems, the Russian scientists working on-site warned it might become an "Iranian Chernobyl". Maybe people are taking it more seriously after Fukushima.

[bananas]

1. What other Laureates say: "No to nuclear power: Nobel Peace Laureates to world leaders"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x945708

No to nuclear power: Nobel Peace Laureates to world leaders

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster - and six weeks after the devastating nuclear disaster in Japan - nine Nobel Peace Laureates are calling upon world leaders to invest in safer forms of renewable energy.

The six women Peace Laureates of the Nobel Women's Initiative, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, and Jose Ramos Horta have sent an open letter to 31 heads of state whose countries are currently heavily invested in nuclear power production, or are considering investing in nuclear power.

<snip>

[NNN0LHI]

2. I too have changed my position on the Iran nuclear facility

I always in the past defended their right to have a peaceful nuclear program. No more. Not after watching one of the most advanced counties in the world(Japan), running around looking like the Keystone Kops at Fukushima trying to prevent a disaster there.

When I seen the Japanese workers resort to using water cannons that were originally purchased to spray anti-nuclear demonstrators in an attempt to cool the reactor cores while everything is blowing up around them my views changed. Dramatically.

I will no longer defend our use of them either.

Has to be a better way.

[upi402]

3. Iran is on a seismically active plateau, IIRC

Iranians should be very concerned. All of us should.

But I never even heard of this in our "media". I guess there are just too many cute white women missing to cover nonsense like this!
:sarcasm:

Important story that I hadn't heard about. Thanks for posting.