Has free speech in America come to this? The 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate cannot The irony is mind-boggling. WSJ reporter Jess Bravin writes, “When Shirin Ebadi won the So last week Ebadi’s American literary agency sued the U.S. Treasury Department, which Ebadi contends in an affidavit that the restrictions “seem to defy the values the United States And here’s another peculiar irony. “The way the Treasury Department interprets the trade
\npublish her memoirs in this country because of a U.S. trade embargo regulation “intended to
\npunish repressive governments such as the regime in Tehran that once sent her to jail,”
\nreports<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> this morning. <\/P>
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\nNobel Peace Prize last year, President Bush congratulated the Iranian lawyer and children’s
\nadvocate for ‘her lifetime championing human rights and democracy.'” Yet “when Ms. Ebadi
\nsought to publish her memoirs in the U.S., she was startled to discover that doing so would be
\nillegal. …” <\/P>
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\nenforces the embargo regulation, for ignoring “congressional directives to exempt information and
\ncreative works from the trade sanctions, and more broadly violat[ing] the First Amendment rights
\nof Americans to read what they wish.”<\/P>
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\npromotes throughout the world, which always include free expression and the free exchange of
\nideas.” Seem to?<\/EM> That’s being charitable.<\/P>
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\nembargo,” Bravin writes, “Ms. Ebadi would have been free to publish a translation of her book in
\nthe U.S. had it originally been issued in Iran.”<\/P>
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