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نصب فرمائيد

Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations

Program

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Welcoming Remarks by Amanda Schnetzer

Good afternoon.  My name is Amanda Schnetzer, and I am executive director of the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations. 

It is my pleasure to welcome all of you—members of the Dallas Committee, distinguished guests, and our honored speaker, Dr. Manouchehr Ganji to today’s program. 

Founded in 1987, the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations is a membership organization of senior leaders in business, government, and academia who share an active commitment to Dallas’s engagement in international affairs. 

For almost twenty years the Dallas Committee has provided a unique forum for its members to hear speeches and engage in thoughtful discussion with leading international voices. 

Today, we are proud to host this special and timely program featuring Dr. Manouchehr Ganji, who has devoted more than 40 years of his life to the cause of human rights and fundamental freedoms around the world and—since the Revolution of 1979—for his native country of Iran.

At this time, it is my pleasure to invite to the podium the Honorable Robert W. Jordan, who will offer a more fitting introduction of our speaker. 

As most of you know, Bob Jordan is a senior partner at the law firm of Baker Botts. He also serves as president of the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations, where he has given generously of his time and talents to the work of the organization for the past two years.  For that we count ourselves lucky and are sincerely grateful. 

From October 2001 to October 2003, Bob Jordan faithfully served his country as U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.  He took charge of his Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks that radically affected U.S.-Saudi relations.

As ambassador, Bob Jordan worked closely with senior Saudi and American leaders to enlist support for removing the Taliban from Afghanistan, liberating the Iraqi people, and promoting the Middle East peace process.  He also worked closely with President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell in matters such as the historic presidential summit meetings in Crawford, Texas, and Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

Owing to his leadership and public service during one of the most critical periods of our nation’s history—and knowing his deep and abiding commitment to the principles of freedom rooted in our nation’s founding—I can think of no better person to introduce our special guest and distinguished speaker today. 

Bob, will you please come to the podium?

Introduction of Dr. Manouchehr Ganji

The Honorable Robert W. Jordan

Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations

October 25, 2006

Like Amanda, I want to thank everyone for taking the time to be with us today for this important program.

I also would like to take a moment to acknowledge some of the distinguished members of our audience:

§        Admiral Thomas Hayward, Former Chief of U.S. Naval Operations and Member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

§        Mr. Herbert Hunt of the PetroHunt Group

§        Ms. Jan Hart Black, President of the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce

§        Dr. Reid Lyon, Former Education Advisor to the White House

We are delighted that you could join us.

I would like to extend a very special welcome to the members of Dr. Ganji’s family who are with us today, including his lovely daughter-in-law Azi  as well as his son—and my close friend and colleague– Darab Ganji.

It is my distinct pleasure today to introduce Dr. Manouchehr Ganji, secretary general of the Organization for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms for Iran and author of Defying The Iranian Revolution.

To introduce Dr. Ganji, I would like to begin with a quotation from another distinguished voice of freedom of our time:  former Czech president Vaclav Havel. As he wrote back in 1999:

I have often asked myself why human beings have any rights at all. I always come to the conclusion that human rights, human freedoms, and human dignity have their deepest roots somewhere outside the perceptible world. These values are as powerful as they are because, under certain circumstances, people accept them without compulsion and are willing to die for them.      

For more than 27 years, Dr. Manoucher Ganji has risked his life in the service of human rights, human freedoms, and human dignity for his native Iran.  He has survived several known attempts on his life by the mullah regime and stands before us today as a beacon of hope for those in Iran and other countries around the globe who struggle for the most basic of political rights and civil liberties.

Dr. Manoucher Ganji was serving as Minister of Education under the Shah when the regime fell in the Revolution of 1979.  Since escaping six months later, Dr. Ganji has devoted most of his life to the liberation of Iran as founder and leader of the Flag of Freedom Organization of Iran and the Organization for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms for Iran.

Educated in Europe and the United States in international law, Dr. Ganji became the United Nations’ first Special Rapporteur on the question of Apartheid and Racial Discrimination in South Africa. After returning to Tehran in the mid 1960s, he became Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science of Tehran University and later Minister of Education under the Shah.

Two weeks prior to the 1979 Revolution, Dr. Ganji’s wife and children abruptly left Iran and moved to the United States. Although the Khomeini regime announced that he had been executed, Dr. Ganji in fact escaped on foot via Turkey. 

Now residing in Washington, DC, Dr. Ganji works tirelessly to bring global attention to the systematic violations of human rights in Iran. He has especially worked to orchestrate a campaign of political defiance by advocating a non-violent, civil disobedience movement against the regime.

A prolific writer in English, Farsi, and French, Dr. Ganji’s most recent book—and the subject of today’s program—is Defying the Iranian Revolution: From a Minister to the Shah to a Leader of Resistance. 

Published by Praeger in 2003, Defying the Iranian Revolution examines:

§        How the 1979 revolution was consummated

§        What it has meant to Iranians and the rest of the world

§        And how the democratic opposition has made steady progress over the years.

In the book, Dr. Ganji also presents a powerful indictment of the country’s mullah regime as a supporter of militant Islam, international terrorism, and hatred of the United States.

Here to share his insights with us, in his own words, is Dr. Manouchehr Ganji.

Please join me in giving him a very warm Dallas welcome.

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