Questions for Khatami - Washington Post

From today's Washington Post:

There is a troubling irony in inviting former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami to speak today at the National Cathedral on the role the Abrahamic faiths can play in shaping peace in the world.  In his own country, Khatami held office as president from 1997 to 2005 while religious minorities -- including Jews, Christians, Sunni and Sufi Muslims, Bahais, dissident Shiite Muslims and Zoroastrians -- faced systematic harassment, discrimination, imprisonment, torture and even execution because of their religious beliefs.  During Khatami's term, Iranian officials persecuted reformers, students, labor activists and journalists for "insulting Islam" and publishing materials deemed to deviate from Islamic standards. [...]

It appears that the cathedral is providing a public platform to an individual who was responsible for implementing and administering policies that resulted in the severe persecution of religious minorities as well as dissident voices within Iran's own Shiite community. Chief among these victimized groups are the very Abrahamic faiths he will discuss in his address.

The National Cathedral is one of America's most significant moral symbols. It is a place where national leaders have been laid to rest, and it is where the nation grieved for the victims of Sept. 11, 2001. [...]  The commission fears that Khatami's address, in its announced format, jeopardizes this important tradition and may ultimately undermine the cathedral's critical national role.

Felice D. Gaer and Nina Shea, Questions for Khatami, Washington Post, Thurs., Sept. 7, 2006, p. A27.  (The authors are respectively the chair and vice chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent federal agency.)