Plaintiffs, Mehdi & Isa Saharkhiz, Response to Nokia Siemens Networks Latest Press Release:
“the Right Parties, the Right Court, the Right Premise”
Chevy Chase, Maryland, August 22, 2010
Regretfully, Nokia Siemens Networks has stayed on the wrong side of reality. Plaintiffs’ lawsuit was filed rightfully against the reckless liable parties in the right Court for their complicit violations of Unites States' Torture Victim Protection and Alien Tort Claim Acts.
Used in violation of international human rights and U.S. laws against torture, Nokia Siemens Networks is responsible for any harm caused directly or indirectly by their products and services, when they intentionally disregarded their knowledge of the foreseeable harm that would result from their products and services in the hands of the Iranian government - an ill intended user – and went ahead and sold the “Spying Centers” to Iran.
The Defendants in this case have a duty to adhere to United States and global human rights’ norms. They recklessly, in breach of their duty, sold sophisticated intercepting devices - the “Spying Centers” - to the Iranian regime. Defendants’ sale to and training of Iranian government officials knowingly and willfully aided and abetted the commission of arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention, torture, and other major human rights abuses violating U.S. and international laws, causing Plaintiffs’ severe physical and mental suffering.
Nokia Siemens Networks is claiming that “it is unrealistic to demand ... that wireless communication systems based on global technology standards be sold without that (spying) capability”. However, international standard for “lawful interception” mandates the interception to be conducted in accordance with human rights principals. Indeed, it is an “unlawful interception” when there is NO mechanism in place for protecting basic and fundamental human rights. It is undeniably false and insulting to compare the reality of interception in developed countries like the U.S. and Europe with that in Iran.
While there are socially beneficial applications of communications products, we should not ignore the realities of human rights violations committed through the use of these products. The duties telecom companies have to comply with universal human rights norms are independent of the benefits gained from those products.
Nokia Siemens Networks provided Iran with the technology “to restrict the free flow of unbiased information” and “to disrupt, monitor, or otherwise restrict speech of the people of Iran” in violation of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Accountability and Divestment Act, signed into law by President Obama in July, 2010. Subsequently, the “President may prescribe, the head of an executive agency may not enter into or renew a contract” with Nokia Siemens Networks, its Parents and Affiliates.
Through their attorneys at the law firm of Moawad & Herischi, the Plaintiffs in this lawsuit call upon the United States’ judicial system to hold Defendants accountable for the foreseeable harms caused by their “Spying Centers” in Iran, for the breach of their duties of care and due diligence, and for recklessly ignoring their obligations under U.S. and international norms to avoid being indirectly complicit in human rights violations, like the ones committed in Iran.
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