by KAVEH SHAHROOZ in New York
On the phone, Ali Herischi, a lawyer in Maryland, is talking tough: "Nokia's decision to give surveillance technology to Iran is like giving a gun to a person that you know wants to shoot somebody." His law partner, Edward Moawad, thinks about it for a moment and tries to firm up the analogy: "It's more like giving a bullet to someone that already has a gun." The two men have been so busy planning the case that they haven't yet had time to figure out how to most dramatically analogize the defendant's action.
Herischi and Moawad are the two lawyers behind an unusual and potentially devastating lawsuit against Nokia Siemens, the Finnish-German telecom giant. As featured in Tehran Bureau last week, the suit has been brought by Mehdi Saharkhiz on behalf of his father, Isa (pictured). The elder Saharkhiz, an outspoken reformist journalist in Iran, was arrested shortly after the start of the post-election uprising in the summer of 2009. Since that time, authorities in Iran have reportedly subjected the 56-year-old former member of the Khatami administration to repeated torture. He has been charged with spreading propaganda against the state and offending the government's senior officials, including the Supreme Leader. Saharkhiz denies the charges.
The new lawsuit alleges that Nokia Siemens knowingly provided the Iranian government with the surveillance technology which it employed to track and arrest dissidents like Saharkhiz; hence, the lawyers' struggle to find an analogy about providing guns to known criminals.
The new lawsuit alleges that Nokia Siemens knowingly provided the Iranian government with the surveillance technology which it employed to track and arrest dissidents like Saharkhiz; hence, the lawyers' struggle to find an analogy about providing guns to known criminals.
This isn't the first time that Saharkhiz's case has been heard abroad. Earlier this year, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found the journalist's incarceration to be "arbitrary" and asked Iran for his "immediate and unconditional release" and guarantee of a "fair trial according to international standards." The U.N. body also asked Iran to pay reparations to Mr. Saharkhiz for his arrest and detention.
Since the launch of Herischi and Moawad's action, the web has been abuzz with stories about the suit. Nokia has hit back, claiming that the service they sold was "lawful interception technology." The company has also stated its belief that the lawsuit has been "brought in the wrong place, against the wrong party and on the wrong premise." More...
