Letter submitted to The Washington Post:

Your article, “U.S. Push for Democracy Could Backfire Inside Iran” (3/14/06) left the impression that a workshop in 2005 for Iranians, facilitated by our organization, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, might have been arranged or funded by the U.S. government.  That is not true.  The Center has not received and will not accept any government funding or guidance for any of its activities.  It is an independent educational foundation that provides generic knowledge about nonviolent civic resistance to whoever requests it.

The article also reported concerns about the workshop by the husband of one participant who was arrested and interrogated for having attended. The Post should have thought twice about accepting at face value information by a family member of someone whom the Iranian government still had in custody.  

Activists in dozens of authoritarian countries take risks every day to resist violations of their rights.  Their lives should not be jeopardized by second-hand accounts in the news media about their activities.

Peter Ackerman
Chair, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict