Open Letter to the World Intellectuals on My Repression in the

United States

Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, Ph.D.

      If the responsibility of intellectuals is, as Michel Foucault and Noman Chomsky and
other towering intellectuals have reminded us, to make an unwavering commitment to truth
and justice in the world, then my entire adult life is without any exaggeration a testament to
living by the moral and ethical dictates of this responsibility and, sadly, witnessing and
experiencing an endless cycle of repression that has marked my life for the past three decades
in the United States.   As a result, I have endured repeated episodes of false arrests,
imprisonment, and even serious bodily harm while in US police custody, reminding me of a
third world dictatorship. It is hard to believe, but it is true.  
      I have already written a brief chronology of my rights abuses (link below) that spares me
of the need to reiterate the atrocious rights abuses, beginning with Harvard University that
used its private army of police and detectives in 1996 to silence me, immediately after I openly
criticized the University's unethical financial connections with the opponents of author, Salman
Rushdie, who has recounted my efforts on his behalf in his autobiography,  Joseph Anton.  After
proving my innocence in court, I commenced a civil suit against Harvard that went to a ten-day
jury trial and then to US Supreme Court, acting as my own attorney since my attorney,
Margaret Burnham, walked out on me on the eve of the trial -- subsequently I found out that
she was a personal friend of Harvard's general counsel at the time, Margaret Marshall.  I have
made legal history by being the first person in Harvard's 400 plus year history to take the
mighty Goliath to the highest court of the nation, pass the writ of certiorari, and lose a close
vote of 5 to 4.  Historian Howard Zinn once wrote an angry letter to a federal judge for
reversing himself and re-opening the case after he had closed it, simply to appease Harvard.  I
have been under the big guns of Harvard ever since, blackballed in the academia for years and,
worse, enduring indirect Harvard's repression through their proxies in Cambridge Police -- that
has subjected me to three (3) episodes of false arrest and incarceration, each time prevailing in
court and twice taking them to the federal court in Boston over my thinly-disguised rights
abuses. Once, in 2010 they falsely accused me of not having paid a 1984 ticket, which turned
out was false and a judge admitted subsequently on record that I had paid that 18 year-old
tickets back then -- and held me in custody overnight, denied me the right to place a call and
set bail and, then, the next day nearly killed me in the back of their patty wagon on the way to
court after going full speed and then slamming the brake, causing my body, cuffed from behind,
to fly to an iron bar and nearly breaking my neck.  Subsequently, the City of Cambridge covered
my $25000.00 medical expenses, minus the expense of the ambulance that carried me from the
patty wagon to Cambridge Hospital -- Foucault must be shivering in his grave now.

      Remind you that I am a well-known political scientist and theologian, with 30 books and
dozens of peer review articles, as well as several hundred newspaper articles, not to mention
dozens of TV interviews, on CNN, NPR, Voice of America, China's and Russian TV, BBC, Canadian
TV, Eurovision, etc.  My theology writings have been published by, among others, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge University Press, Chicago University Press, and Wadsworth, and I
have long record in peace activism, being a protege of Chomsky and late historian Howard Zinn
(see my eulogy of Zinn in the Nation) of course you would expect that.  As a young man, I once
forfeited my education in US to go to Iran and join the anti-Shah revolution, repeatedly risking
my life, only to be demoralized by the rise of a new theocracy recycling the ancient
authoritarianism under a religious garb; I returned to US, finished my education and devoted
decades of my life to the cause of rationalization of the (dogmatic) religious worldview and
gradual reform in Iran; the latter mandated from me a serious commitment to US-Iran dialogue
and nuclear negotiations, as an expert on Iran's foreign and nuclear policies, hoping that this
would be followed by a normalization of relations between the two countries and thus pave the
way to Iran's democratization by, e.g., stealing the torch of anti-Americanism from the
aytollahs.  I did this by, at the same time, never flinching from my moral duty to stand for the
rights of women in Iran, as reflected in my 1993 op-ed in Boston Globe, titled "Iran's Other
Prisoners," which is sadly as valid today as it was nearly 30 years ago.  To give other examples of
my pro-rights writings, I defended Shah's voting rights to women in a 2009 article in the New
York Times and a decade ago wrote a feminist novel centered on the struggle of Iranian women
for autonomy, titled Shiraz Diaries and Jallad (Executioner), highly praised by the New York
University Professor of Middle East literature, Peter Chelkowski.  

      But, as if the four episodes of vicious rights abuses mentioned above weren't bad
enough, since January 2021 I have been effectively character assassinated in the US media as an
"Iranian spy," "secret agent" and the like simply because I had a side gig as international affairs
consultant to Iran's Mission to UN, much like hundreds of other consultants, under UN norms
and guidelines.  The 'free media' in US has parroted the baseless charges leveled against me by
the Trump administration in its last 48 hours in office, as part of its avalanche of anti-Iran salvos
at the time.  I am accused of writing "books and articles" as pro-Iran propaganda yet, without
ever bothering to cite a single example. In response, I have published a compendium of my op-
ed articles in a book, titled Agent of Peace: Response to US Accusations, asking the readers to
review my articles and to ascertain if there is an iota of propaganda about anyone them -- I
submit to you there isn't.  I fully supported Obama's Iran nuclear negotiations, defended his
chief negotiator John Kerry, and sought to telescope the nuclear agreement to a normalization
of US-Iran relations for my above-mentioned democratic purposes.  I also devoted myself to the
cause of US hostages in Iran and collaborated with the family of FBI agent missing in Iran,
Robert Levinson, and turned down their money offer because that was purely humanitarian on
my part.  I also worked with MIT Professor Noam Chomsky for the release of three young
American hikers held in Iran in 2008, and Chomsky has recently written the following letter to
the court confirming it:
"I am writing in connection with the case of Kaveh Afrasiabi, a long-time colleague,
and more specifically, in connection with our involvement in the affair of the three
young American hikers – Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Josh Fattal – who were
detained by Iranian border guards when they accidentally crossed into Iran, then
imprisoned. I was personally involved in the efforts to obtain their release, and
knowing that Professor Afrasiabi had some Iranian contacts, I asked him for
suggestions about how to help. He was very forthcoming. Apart from suggestions, he
tried as best he could to intervene personally to expedite their quick release from
imprisonment, another of many illustrations of his engagement in human rights
activities in Iran and elsewhere. In this particular case his intervention was not only
very welcome to all of us but apparently also of assistance in obtaining their release.

Noam Chomsky

Institute Professor emeritus, MIT

Laureate Professor, U. of Arizona"

      Furthermore, in my quest as a peace activist, I also once collaborated with Ashton

Carter, the former US Defense Secretary while he headed the Preventive Diplomacy Program at
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, by pitching a joint proposal on an "incident at sea
agreement" to US and Iran, following my letter in the New York Times on the same subject (link
below).  To give another example, after the US assassination of Iran's top general Ghasem
Soleimani in Baghdad in early 2020, I repeatedly reached out to Iran's foreign minister and
Iran's top diplomats at UN, urging them against a military retaliation and asking them to confine
themselves to "rule-abiding behavior."  Recently, US's top commander in Persian Gulf has told
the CBS' "60 Minutes" that if one single US soldier had died in Iran's missile strike at US bases
then, US would have launched a massive military strike on Iran -- in other words, we would
have witnessed yet another calamitous inter-state war in the Middle East.

My intellectual friends and colleagues around the world:

           As I write these lines, as a result of the latest assault on my civil and constitutional rights, 
my freedom is once again jeopardized and I find myself in yet another 'David and Goliath' battle
with Uncle Sam, determined to crush me, for all the wrong reasons I hasten to add, for the
simple fact is that my record speaks for itself and I am proud of my decades-long contribution
to the cause of US-Iran peace and dialogue and de-escalation of tensions, as well as consistent
defense of rights in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East.  No academic in US has suffered
rights abuse as much as I have, as far as I am aware, and it is absolutely shameful for the US
government to ignore the violations of US laws by my rights abusers and claim that it wants to
uphold the laws in my case.  I once appealed to then US Senator John Kerry for help and he
wrote a letter to US Justice Department stating that his office had determined that my
complaint had "merits," and, yet, this fell on deaf ears at the Justice Department -- that is now
up in arms against me, a defenseless self-representing academic with a long history of
oppression in America, the 'land of the free'.  
      In conclusion, I implore the world's intellectuals to speak out against my oppression in
the United States and to review the above-stated facts for themselves to realize the incredible
pain and suffering I have endured, the imminent threats to my freedom, and the necessity of
defending me, just as I have always defended other intellectuals in distress.  

Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, Ph.D.

Boston, October 10, 2022
www.kavehafrasiabi.com

http://www.kavehafrasiabi.com/gip_curraffairs/a-chronology-of-my-human-rights-abuse-in-america/

https://www.amazon.com/Looking-Rights-Harvard-Kaveh-Afrasiabi/dp/1439268835

https://www.amazon.com/Letter-International-Harvards-Abuses-Rights-ebook/dp/
B0BB7QC76V/ref=sr_1_15?
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XNhIjoiMi45NSIsInFzcCI6IjIuMjUifQ%3D%3D&s=books&sprefix=kaveh+a%2Cstripbooks
%2C86&sr=1-15

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2021/03/09/response-to-u-s-accusations-and-my-private-diplomacy/

https://www.amazon.com/Agent-Peace-Response-US-Complaint-ebook/dp/B08Y84SNLV/
ref=sr_1_20?
crid=37MTQEHNBYIVQ&keywords=kaveh+afrasiabi&qid=1665341143&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIzLjk3Iiwi
cXNhIjoiMi45NSIs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL21nDnuqpY