International politics is a strange business, as this Turkish press report reminds us.
The core of the story is this: Negar Azizmoradi is an Iranian citizen. She is also the head of the “Raelian” group in Iran and is currently seeking asylum in Turkey, due to a fear of persecution back home in Iran.
Ms. Azizmoradi’s concerns appear to be justified. The Raelian faith holds that beings from other planets have visited the earth in the past. They were mistaken for gods and prophets by people in ancient and medieval times; hence the rise of such false earthly religions as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and so forth. Raelians are encouraged to express their own natural sexuality as nature prompts; sexual pleasure is a gift from the aliens to be enjoyed by the faithful on earth. In order to join the Raelian religion, it is necessary to formally abjure whatever mistaken faith you previously accepted.
Together, these tenets make this interesting religion pretty much the opposite of anything the Iranians are ready to tolerate. Atheism, permissive and unorthodox sexuality, and apostasy from Islam are just not what the mullahs want to see. Ms. Azizmoradi has I think wisely decided that under the circumstances Iran might not be the best long term home for her. Turkey may not, however, have been the best choice for a refuge.
Turkey and Iran have a complex relationship, one that goes back to past centuries when the Ottoman Sultan, the Caliph of the Sunni Islamic world, dueled with the Shi’a rulers of Persia. These days, the two countries not only have important economic ties; they share common interests in controlling the behavior of restive minorities, like the Kurds. As the article in Huriyet points out, Turkey and Iran have both in the past ‘traded’ dissidents back and forth for political purposes.
Ms. Azizmoradi poses another set of problems for the quasi-Islamist AK party now governing Turkey. Apostasy and sex cults are no more popular among orthodox Sunni believers than among the Shi’a. If the Turks allow her to claim asylum (more accurately, to move on as a refugee to a third country as Turkey does not provide asylum for non-Europeans), this can and perhaps will be portrayed among the especially pious as evidence for the decadence and hypocrisy of the Turkish Islamists. On the other hand, any failure to give the Raelian leader the full protection of the law will give the AK’s critics in Turkey and abroad grounds for doubting whether that party is really committed to the rule of law.
Turkish opposition members of parliament are already making hay with the case; it doesn’t hurt that Ms. Azizmoradi has the kind of looks that might make many people consider that Raelianism might be well worth a fling.
On a more serious note, people deported to Iran from Turkey in the past have been executed. Ms. Azizmoradi on the face of it looks like a good candidate for extreme measures from the Iranian judicial system.
Yet letting her go will not be cost-free. Iran has the ability to cause Turkey serious problems — for example by refusing to extradite PKK terrorists seeking shelter on Iranian territory. Is a sober, pious Turkish government really going to endanger the fight against domestic terrorism for the sake of a flying saucer cultist preaching free love?
It is worth also asking what Americans and Europeans should do in this case. On the one hand, we are all clear that eccentric religious beliefs should not be met with persecution, especially persecution unto death. If Ms. Azizmoradi had made it to the U.S. or the E.U., we would keep her and let the mullahs fume and draft fatwas. But there is another, trickier question: how much pressure should we place on the Turks to send her west rather than east? We and the Turks have a lot of issues on the table already and the United States has only a limited amount of political capital in the country. Do we want to spend our capital on this issue rather than on other things? Is it worth alienating the Turks over the life of Ms. Azizmoradi? Would we rather see her safe in Sweden or would we rather see Turkey sending more troops to Afghanistan or working with us in other ways? Pontius Pilate would have washed his hands in a situation like this; what should we do?
As diplomatic entanglements go, the fate of Ms. Azizmoradi is relatively small potatoes. One hopes that the Turks will somehow lose the relevant paperwork and she will somehow manage to get on a plane to someplace far, far away from Tehran. But the ethical questions her case raises are exactly the kind that diplomats and policy makers face every day. The answers to these questions aren’t obvious or easy. I myself do not know what I would do if I were the American ambassador to Turkey and I was somehow dragged into this matter — although whatever it was, I would try to do it quietly, tactfully and with a full understanding of the problems my Turkish counterparts faced.
In the meantime, my advice to Ms. Azizmoradi’s fellow Raelian believers still in Iran: keep your heads down and your mouths shut. But they probably know that already.