You have probably already heard that Iran has banned a list of 60 foreign organizations. Here is a list of these organizations:
1. Soros Foundation — Open Society 2. Woodrow Wilson Center 3. Freedom House 4. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) 5. National Democratic Institute (NDI) 6. International Republican Institute (IRI) 7. Institute for Democracy in East Europe (EEDI) 8. Democracy Center in East Europe (CDEE) 9. Ford Foundation 10. Rockefeller Brothers Foundation 11. Hoover Institute at Stanford University 12. Hivos Foundation, Netherlands 13. Menas, U.K. 14. United Nations Association (USA) 15. Carnegie Foundation 16. Wilton Park, U.K. 17. Search for Common Ground (SFCG) 18. Population Council 19. Washington Institute for Near East Policy 20. Aspen Institute 21. American Enterprise Institute 22. New America Foundation 23. Smith Richardson Foundation 24. German Marshall Fund (US, Germany and Belgium) 25. International Center on Nonviolent Conflict 26. Abdolrahman Boroumand Foundation 27. Yale University 28. Meridian Center 29. Foundation for Democracy in Iran 30. International Republican Institute 31. National Democratic Institute 32. American Initiative Institute 33. Institute of Democracy in Eastern Europe 34. American Aid Center 35. International Trade Center 36. American Center for International Labor Solidarity 37. International Center for Democracy Transfer 38. Community of Democracies (?) 39. Albert Einstein Institute 40. Global Movement for Democracy 41. The Democratic Youth Network 42. Democracy Information and Communication Technology Group 43. International Movement of Parliamentarians for Democracy 44.Institute of Democracy 45. RIGA Institute 46. The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School 47. Council on Foreign Relations 48. Foreign Policy Committee, Germany 49. Middle East Media Research Institute 50. Centre for Democracy Studies, U.K. 51. Meridian Institute 52. Yale University and all its affiliates 53. National Defense University, U.S. 54. Iran Human Rights Documentation Center 55. American Center FLENA 56. Committee on the Present Danger 57. Brookings Institution 58. Saban Center, Brookings Institution 59. Human Rights Watch 60. New America Foundation
This list seems to be somewhat botched, as one organization is listed twice (New America Foundation). some of these are probably harmless and some that should be there are missing (I suspect that repeated translation are the issue here). But some of these are truly amazingly toxic fronts for US subversive efforts. If one looks at the recent history of the various “color-coded revolutions” or what happened in Venezuela, it is evident that what Iran did is actually an extremely wise move, even if it was ridiculed by Western pundits (in particular those who work for the above mentioned organizations).
I would hope that other countries such as Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Serbia, Belarus and many others would soon follow Iran’s example and stop being idiotically blind to what these organizations (maybe not all, but definitely the most of them) really are and what their true mission is.
To all this I would personally add Doctors Without Borders which is a front for the French foreign intelligence service and the ICRC which is a front for various European intelligence services (though I don’t know if either of the two are currently present in Iran).
President Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez are the only two political leaders which have succeeded in surviving a color-coded and CIA-run “revolution” and both of them are clearly thinking along the same lines (Venezuela has also banned some “democratic” organizations with “ties” to the USA). Right now the most threatened independent political leader is probably Evo Morales and I sure hope that he will soon follow their example.
If the world wants to rid itself from the rule of the USraelian Empire it better start taking active measures in disabling the instruments which this empire uses to subvert and incorporate independent countries.
Won’t the likes of NED simply relabel themselves? Being banned in Iran will probably give these outfits street cred among liberals everywhere.
Now that Obama is in the White House rather than Bush pundits like Timothy Garton Ash of the Guardian find it much easier to bash regimes that are hostile to the US.
I totally agree and am glad you wrote this very necessary post but your remark re “Doctors without Borders” came as a surprise to me.
I know “Reporters without Borders” to be a despicable organisation along the lines you refer to. Did you mean them or am I indeed learning something new?
@Robert: I don’t think that Carnegie or Soros can relabel themselves that easily. Besides, since it is easy to keep updated files on their key employees it would not be difficult for Iran to keep individuals out of the country too.
That the pundits are ridiculing this measure, or expressing outrage over it, is fully predictable. But since all of them were already bashing Iran and since all of them were active propagandist of the recent Mousavi Gucci-Revolution attempt it’s not like the Iranian decision to give them the boot and show them to the door will make things much worse.
Iran and Venezuela are, along with Russia, of course, the most hated countries by the USraelien “Imperial High Command” as I call them and not matter what these countries do or not do, all we can expect is a steady flow of trashing, ridiculing, denounciation, whining about democracy, accusations of human rights violations, etc. etc. etc. The only thing which can stop that now is a US engineered coup a la Honduras, after which, of course, the corporate media will heap praise on the new regime even if the latter has all the signs of a Fascist dictatorship (like the scum in power in Honduras).
@Johan van Rooyen: both the ICRC and MSF have dedicated, sincere and honest people working in them. The tragedy is that they are still used by various governments for their political purposes. I cannot comment further on this topic, but let me just say that I have personal and direct knowledge of what I am saying here. Alternatively, follow the “money trail”. Look at where these organization get their financial support and ask yourself why some key NATO governments support them. Or look into the personal bio of some of their key members.
Sorry, I really have said all I can say about this topic.
Again, I would not call MSF or the IRCR “despicable”. I would call it “used by invisible hands”.
Like Johan van Rooyen noticed, “Reporters Without Borders” (which I don’t know if operates in Iran, and to which level) is also another of these organizations, which receives a great part of its funding from NED.
Here is a very good article about it(in Spanish):
http://www.voltairenet.org/article124306.html
the same organizations should be banned here in the former America as well. If nothing else, this article provides a checklist of viable targets.
I read years ago that Russia banned Soros’s open society. So I guess most of the others are banned there as well.
Sybille
“I would hope that other countries such as Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Serbia, Belarus and many others would soon follow Iran’s example and stop being idiotically blind to what these organizations (maybe not all, but definitely the most of them) really are and what their true mission is.”
Russia and Serbia proposed a law on the limit of foreign NGO’s which “human rights” organisations bitched and moaned about of course (remember the rock British spy case linking the British embassy to NGO’s) but I don’t know if it came into effect.
“President Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez are the only two political leaders which have succeeded in surviving a color-coded and CIA-run “revolution” and both of them are clearly thinking along the same lines (Venezuela has also banned some “democratic” organizations with “ties” to the USA). Right now the most threatened independent political leader is probably Evo Morales and I sure hope that he will soon follow their example.”
Not true there was the failed Cedar revolution in Lebanon, and failed revolutions in Moldovia, Belarus, Burma and Uzbekistan.
SAKER OBVIOULSLY CARES NOTHING FOR THE POOR MASSES LIVING UNDER THE OPPRESSIVE BOOT OF THE MARXIST CHAVEZ AND THE NUTCASE AHMADINEJAD AND THE WACKY PERSIAN REGIME. HIS HATRED FOR AMERICA HAS BLINDED HIM TO REAL EVIL. PATHETIC!
these organizations are against the current regime in Iran and so are many Iranians living inside the country. The people’s opposition has nothing to do with these organizations.
@Javad: whether the people who protest in Iran realize it or not, the leadership of their movement (Rafsanjani, Mousavi & Co.) are, of course, objective allies of the USraelian Empire, if not thier agents or puppets. There is nothing new here. The same goes for the ignorant crowds of the other color-coded revolutions (Georgia, the Ukraine, etc.). I can fully undertsand that many people in Iran want to oppose the current political system, but when they do it under the guidance of the Gucci-revolutionaries they are objectively serving foreign, imperial, interests.
FYI, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, which is on this list, has a statement out which notes that the Iranian regime has said these groups are “overthrowing organizations” that have engaged in a “soft invasion” or “soft war” against the Iranian state and have incited “post-election unrest,” but that none of these claims is true about them, since they’re an educational foundation “that provides knowledge – in the form of books, articles, videos and workshop content – about the use of nonviolent resistance in campaigns for rights, self-rule, justice and democracy.” That’s pretty much their reputation among nonviolent trainers around the world, including those on the radical left. Also you might want to consider that any regime which criminalizes the receipt of educational information can’t be that interested in its people’s rights.